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Recent edits adding traditions

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I am considering revising or even removing much of the recent edits by Warlordjohncarter. The problem is that some of the information added is not accepted historical fact, though it seems to be stated as such. In addition, the sources of the particular traditions are not even cited; instead, there is one lump sum reference - itself another encyclopedia.

For example, I have read that Eusebius records the tradition that Mark brought Christianity to Alexandria, however is he also responsible for reporting that "Mark... ...decided it might be best if he were to leave the area for a while... [and] ...ordained Anianus to be bishop in his absence."? How about his visits to "Rome, Aquileia, and the Pentapolis"? Or his "martyrdom... ...on the 30th day of Baramudah" - Are these traditions from the apocryphal Acts of Mark? Is this information mentioned by early Christian authors or is does it rely solely on apocryphal accounts, which are often dated late and are almost always psedupigraphical.

I just don't think a single reference to another encyclopedia is enough to have all of these traditions presented together as a single narrative, and as fact, without actually telling us where the traditions come from, or indeed if they even all come from the same place. Brando130 04:44, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please read wikipedia's official policies on reliable sources. I believe that all the content added qualifies as being from a reliable source, and thus explicitly qualifies for inclusion on that basis. Your own questions, as to what sources were used, and more importantly whether you consider them reliable, are not really relevant, as per that policy. However, to answer the questions anyway, having some familiarity with the book, the documents it tends to use most frequently are the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria and the Coptic Synaxarion, both of which are generally counted as being among the most reliable sources on the lives of these individuals. To answer your questions any further would be speculate on my part, which is an explicit violation of original research. The same policy is the reason why I cannot answer your questions, because, frankly, my source did not answer them. Please also be aware that reversion or removal of sourced material, and all the material I had added is directly sourced, is contrary to wikipedia policy, unless the lack of reliability of the source is established and or alternate sources are found which directly contradict such information. John Carter 13:09, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would dispute that questions about the nature and reliability of the source are irrelevant per WP:VERIFY. We are talking about an ancient figure whose life is known through numerous traditions and sources, not all of the same date, and not all of the same value. What I am arguing here is that the various traditions, which have simply been juxtaposed by another encyclopedia, should not then be given as simple historical/biographical fact on Wikipedia, referencing only another encyclopedia.

You yourself have stated that the Coptic Encyclopedia that you've employed doesn't answer specifically which traditions belong to which actual original source, so how is any single particular claim to be distinguished from another claim that is in the Coptic Encyclopedia?

I agree the answer doesn't lie in reverting the edits or removing the content, and I have asked for your attention so that my issue with the article could be resolved without that. But let me use an example to demonstrate the problem, take the life of the Biblical patriarch Abraham. In addition to what is known from the Torah, stories of Abraham's life can be found in Jewish, Islamic, Christian, and even Mormon culture.

Now if I find a published encyclopedia, perhaps one that takes the Mormon point of view, I don't feel it would be in accordance with Wikipedia's policies if I then created a biographical page on Abraham that said "Abraham did this," and then "Abraham did that," with only my one encyclopedic reference, when in fact one piece of my new article on Abraham's life comes from the Torah, and another may come directly from Mormon tradition, that is to say, a piece of Abraham's life which was allegedly forgotten, and then 'revealed directly by God' to Joseph Smith in the 19th century.

Any future editors that come along are of course going to insist that one piece of information states 'According to the Torah' - and another 'According to Mormon tradition.' One encyclopedia that has juxtaposed all of these traditions would not satisfy, and I'm arguing roughly the same thing here, that the reader has nothing to go on when reading the various statements. Shouldn't we say that certain things are 'According to Coptic' tradition, etc? What do you think?

Also, I ask for the input of other editors that may read this discussion. Brando130 19:33, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To add the statement you requested would be original research, as I do not have explicit evidence that it is based on "Coptic tradition". All I really have in this instance is a source which was issued by a major publisher, and I am really limited to effectively repeating what it said. It did not state it was based on "Coptic tradition", so it would be improper for me to specificy that possible source. Also, the source doesn't actually take the "Coptic" side, as I have found in some instances where it has specifically denied the reliability of tradition. If you honestly think that the source isn't acceptable, please leave a message to that effect at Wikipedia:Verifiability/Noticeboard. Regarding your point that not all legends are reliable, granted. However, on that basis, all such ancient figures would have to have their veracity challenged, as, ultimately, we have no eyewitnesses. Also, although I do not have the volume here, I believe it itself cited several sources (six, maybe?) for the article. Unfortunately, that is really rather irrelevant, unless it is shown that this secondary source does not meet the standard of reliable, published sources. If you wish to challenge the alleged "miracle", I could understand that, but without a specific source indicating that it is "alleged", it would be original research to rephrase it. Now, there are several other sources, including the scholarly Analecta Bollandiana, which definitely doesn't take the side of "miracles". So far, however, I haven't seen any references in it to this subject, so I can't presume the existence of comments simply because I personally think they should exist. If you can find such sources, however, I would welcome that input. John Carter 19:50, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Feast day

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There's something wrong with the feast days. The articles states that "25 April in the Coptic Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, 16 November in the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria", but both Coptic Orthodox Church and Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria end up at the same page, thus this cannot be correct. The dates or the redirect is incorrect. José Luiz disc 18:51, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Reliability?

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The article makes blanket statements about the life of Anianus as though they were established fact (eg his ordination by St Mark), though I imagine these statements should be qualified with something like "According to Coptic Christian tradition..." I'm not sure how to tag the article or what to tag it with, but it needs better sourcing and more neutral scholarly language. Mpaniello (talk) 03:58, 26 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 28 May 2025

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– Background: see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2025 May 12#Early patriarchs of Alexandria.

  1. The fact that 4 different denominations today (Coptic Orthodox Church, Coptic Catholic Church, the Melkite Catholic Patriarchate of Antioch and Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria) all claim that their line of patriarchs of Alexandria traces back to Saint Mark the Evangelist, Anianus, Avilius etc., and they are the only legitimate successors after the 536 schism, but only the Coptic Orthodox denomination uses the title "Pope" in addition to "Patriarch of Alexandria" (officially: Pope of Alexandria and the Patriarch of the see of St. Mark), while the Coptic Catholics, Melkite Catholics and Greek Orthodox are all fine with "Patriarch of Alexandria". (For the post-536 period, the 4 denominations have their own articles, lists and categories, so there is no technical issue there). In addition, a few patriarchs of Alexandria adhered to Arianism, a Christian denomination that no longer exists and is widely seen as "heresy" today (this affects three article titles: Gregory of Cappadocia, Lucius of Alexandria, and Proterius of Alexandria).
  2. The fact that MOS:PATRI technically contradicts MOS:POPES for the pre-536 period in Alexandria. For the 40 or so men serving as patriarchs of Alexandria before 536 (see List of patriarchs of Alexandria#List of patriarchs (prior to 536), the word "Pope" is currently used in most article titles per MOS:POPES for the Coptic Orthodox Church. But per MOS:PATRI, it should be "Patriarch" for the the Coptic Catholics, Melkite Catholics and Greek Orthodox. Obviously, we can't have both simultaneously. (The development of MOS:POPES never seems to have accounted for the eventual emergence of this issue; the convention about "Roman and Coptic popes" was added in 2003, before any mention of Orthodox patriarchs, and barely changed since. We can hardly fault our English Wikipedia pioneers for not having foreseen this).
  • Usage of the word "Pope" in the article title thus implies the exclusive legitimacy of the line of popes of the Coptic Orthodox Church, and the illegitimacy of all three other denominations. That does not conform with WP:NPOV; Wikipedia does not take a POV in various disputes between religious institutions or traditions. Some exceptions are possible, of course, such as the List of popes of the Coptic Orthodox Church, which presents the Coptic Orthodox perspective that all pre-536 patriarchs of Alexandria were simultaneously also "Popes of the Coptic Orthodox Church". But it is difficult to justify that this Coptic Orthodox Church POV should be presented in all pre-536 article titles when there are 3 other competing denominations which dispute this POV. The only possible argument in favour (at least that I can see) is per WP:DUE, namely that the Coptic Orthodox Church currently has more members (c. 10 million) than all other three combined (Melkite Catholic c. 1.6 million; Greek Orthodox POA c. 0.5 to 3 million; Coptic Catholic 187,320 as of 2017). But the three others may be considered relatively large enough to not be on the WP:FRINGE, and it is difficult to imply that the Coptic Orthodox Church's claim is "right" just because they are in the majority. Besides, even the Orthodox Copts agree that all their popes were also Patriarchs of Alexandria, so from their POV, it wouldn't be incorrect to use "Patriarch" in these article titles either. Finally, there is WP:TITLECON with the main articles Patriarch of Alexandria and List of patriarchs of Alexandria.
  • Therefore, I (together with Marcocapelle, who first brought this up) propose per MOS:PATRI, WP:TITLECON and WP:NPOV that we Rename All titles of articles about patriarchs of Alexandria before 536, such that they start with the word "Patriarch", not "Pope".

The proposal theoretically affects 37 articles. (See Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2025 May 12#Early patriarchs of Alexandria for a complete list).

  • 3 reasoned exceptions have been deemed permissible per WP:COMMONNAME: Mark the Evangelist, Athanasius of Alexandria, and Cyril of Alexandria are thus not nominated for renaming, because WP:COMMONNAME is deemed to prevail over MOS:PATRI and WP:TITLECON, while posing no WP:NPOV issues.
  • 8 other article titles have been deemed potentially controversial due to disputes over their legitimacy (including the 3 Arianism adherents), or over the legitimacy of earlier men with the same name, leading to different ordinal numbers for various "Johns" and "Timothies". In order to prevent a WP:TRAINWRECK, it has been agreed to postpone a decision about these 8 articles until a consensus has been established for the remaining 26 articles.
  • For these remaining 26 articles (nominated above), the requested move is expected to be relatively uncontroversial, based on the policies and guidelines outlined in this rationale. NLeeuw (talk) 22:25, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Pinging @Marcocapelle, HouseBlaster, and Pppery: FYI. Maybe I should alert some relevant WikiProjects as well? NLeeuw (talk) 22:26, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note: five current names required the removal of "Pope" from their titles, because that word made them redirects and redirects cannot be current titles in move requests. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'er there 04:46, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I anticipated that might create a technical issue, yes. Thanks for fixing it. NLeeuw (talk) 06:17, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Happy to help! P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'er there 06:30, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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