Nubia is a vast tract of country next to the
southern border of Egypt. Its people had assimilated the
Egyptian civilisation, when the 18th Dynasty Pharaohs
conquered them. Since then, many Egyptians settled
among them in mutual friendliness, and when they were
converted to Christianity, they carried it to their
neighbours. During the persecutions, thousands of
Egyptians settled there permanently. The Nubians were
therefore as familiar with the cults of Pharaonic Egypt as
with Christianity. But they needed to be confirmed in the
Christian Faith, and to have an established Church. This
sublime task was undertaken by Yulianos about A.D. 551,
and some eighteen years late the Torch was picked up by
another monk called Longinus. The latter’s work was
speeded by the wise guidance of Theodorus Bishop of
Philae.
The Nubians had learned from the Egyptians the
habit of using the hieroglyphs for writing their own
language on the walls of their temples. When they were
converted to Christianity, they followed the same pattern,
adopting Coptic for writing their language. It is feasible
to conclude that, since the Copts were the bearers of the
Christ’s message to the Nubians, they were, also, the
translators of the Holy Scriptures into Nubian, even
though many Nubians had lerned the Coptic language as
evidenced by the discovery of Coptic texts in the Saidic
dialect, written on the walls of excavated tombs.^17
In A.D. 563, the Emperor of Constantinople,
acting in accord with Silko, King of Nubia, decreed that
the pagan temples be transformed into Christian churches.
The Nubian Church was entrusted to the spiritual
guidance of the Bishop of Aswan. Since then, it became
Suffragan the Chair of St. Mark.^18
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(Elle)
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