‘abd al-masīḥ ṣalīb al-mas‘ūdī. A monk at the Monastery of the Virgin (dayr al-baramūs in Wādī al-Naṭrūn), ‘Abd al-Masīḥ (1848–1935) was ordained a monk by his uncle, ‘Abd al-Masīḥ al-Kabīr, in 1874. His prolific writings covered linguistics, ritual, and history. He mastered Hebrew, Syriac, Greek, and Coptic. His best known work is his interpretation of the epact in the Arabic version of al-Abukti (reckoning of the derivation of feast days in the Coptic, Syrian, Armenian, and Greek churches).
His most significant works include Kītab al-Khulājī al-Muqaddas (i.e., Kitāb al-Thalāth Quddāsāt; The three masses, Cairo, 1903); Kītab al-Tuḥfah al-Saniyyah (Theology, Cairo, 1925); Kītab al-Durrah al-Nafisah fī Ḥisābāt al-Kanīsah, Cairo, 1926, a small and concise treatise on dates of the church developed in a much more detailed work of more than 617 pages entitled Al-Tuḥfah al-Barāmūsiyyah fī Sharḥ wa-Tatimmat Qawā‘id Ḥisāb al-Abqaṭi lil-Kanīsah al-Qibṭiyyah al-Urthudhuksiyyah, Cairo, 1925); Kitāb al-Karmah (Theology, Cairo, 1927); Kitāb al-Asrār (Coptic and Arabic terminology of the church defined, Cairo, 1926); and Tuḥfat al-Sa’ilīn fī Dhikr Adyirat Ruhbān al-Miṣriyyīn (On Coptic monasteries, Cairo, 1932).
He was summoned by Patriarch cyril V to serve in the central administration of the church at the patriarchate in Cairo. He died at the age of eighty-seven in 1935.
aziz s. atiya