The answer
The overall plan of a church building may take any one of a number of possible shapes:
First: Cruciform. This design reveals the Church’s mystical nature as being the body of the Crucified Christ, her beloved Savior. Butler reports: “The Coptic builders seem to have have no liking for or no knowledge of the cruciform groundplan.”1202
Second: Circular. This design refers to the eternal nature of the Church like an endless line1203 (without beginning or end), as she bears the nature of her eternal Bridegroom. Once again, this form is very scarce in Coptic architecture.
Third: An Ark. Drawings of various shapes have been found inscribed on Egyptian, Greek, and Roman tombs that reflect their beliefs about immortality1204; they regarded death as a journey in a ship to the other world. St. Augustine says, “Undoubtedly, the ark is a symbol of the city of God on its pilgrimage through history, a type of the church which was saved by the tree on which there hung ‘the Mediator between God and men, Himself man, Christ Jesus’ (1 Tim. 2:5).”
St. Hippolytus says, “The sea is the world, in which the Church is set, like a ship tossed in the deep, but not destroyed; for she has with her the skilled Pilot, Christ … her tillers are the two Testaments, and the ropes that stretch around her are the love of Christ, which binds the Church; and the net which she bears with her is the layer of the regeneration which renews the believing, whence too are these glories. As the wind the Spirit from heaven is present, by whom those who believe are sealed: she has also anchors of iron accompanying her, the holy commandments of Christ Himself, which are strong as iron. She has also mariners on the right and on the left, assessors like the holy angels, by whom the Church is always governed and defended. The ladder in her leading up to the sailyard is an emblem of the passion of Christ, which brings the faithful to the ascent of heaven. And the top-sails aloft upon the yard are the company of prophets, martyrs, and apostles, who have entered into their rest in the kingdom of Christ.1205
In addition, St. Clement of Alexandria says, “The Word of God manages your ship rudder (your heart) and the Holy Spirit returns you to the port of heaven safely.”1206
Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty
Notes
1202 Alfred J. Butler, The Ancient Coptic Churches of Egypt, Volume 1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1884): p. 6.
1203 Catherine Zvegintzov, Our Mother Church: Her Worship and Offices (London: S.P.C.K., 1968): p. 9.
1204 Hugo Rahner, Greek Myths & Christian Mystery (London: Biblo & Tannen Booksellers & Publishers Incorporated, 1963): pp. 85ff.
1205 St. Hippolytus of Rome, Treatise on Christ and Antichrist 59 (ANF 5:218).
1206 Cf. St. Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Heathens 12 (ANF 2:295ff).