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The cantors

Muʿallim Fahim Girgis Rizk المعلم فهيم جرجس رزق · chief cantor of St. Mark’s Church in Azbakiyya, 1910-1999

Fahim Girgis Rizk went from a village church to Jerusalem and then to the cathedral of Cairo. A pupil of Mikhail al-Batanuni, he was for half a century the cantor of the Great Church of St. Mark in Azbakiyya, taught the liturgy to the priests that two patriarchs ordained, and recorded the first teaching tape of the liturgy for the churches abroad.1 Laurence Moftah counts him first among the second generation of cantors, “Fahim Girgis Rizk (b. 1910-d. 1999).”2

A young man in a black cassock standing behind a bearded priest in a black cap with a pectoral cross
Muʿallim Fahim Girgis, standing, in Jerusalem in 1942, with the head of the Coptic monasteries there, Fr. Butrus al-Shuhaydi al-Antuni, later Anba Yoannes, Metropolitan of Khartoum.From a memorial booklet of Muʿallim Fahim, as posted in the Coptic Hymns Guide’s album of him, where the original is.

Mit Ghamr

He was born in the Delta in 1910. Fahim Girgis Rizk was born at Mit Ghamr, in Daqahliyya, on 24 November 1910. He went to the Coptic primary school there until the third year, when an eye disease weakened his sight, in 1922, at twelve. In the church of St. George at Mit Ghamr he learned the Psalms, the psalmody, the hymns and the rites from the church’s cantors, Hanna Sulayman, Girgis Gorgi and Wadiʿ ʿAzzuz, and he was made a deacon in 1923. His wish was to master the hymns and rites of the Church so as to serve as a cantor “according to the right tradition.”34

His brother brought him to Mikhail al-Batanuni. His parents had reposed when he was young, and his elder brother Nayruz Girgis took charge of him, brought him to Cairo and enrolled him in the school at Mahmasha, where he studied under Mikhail al-Batanuni from 1922 to 1925.5 Through 1926 he trained as a cantor in churches around Mit Ghamr and Minya al-Qamh; from 1927 he was cantor of St. George’s at Awlila, from 1932 to 1935 of St. George’s at Quwaysna in Menoufia, and early in 1937, for one month, of the Church of the Virgin at Faggala in Cairo.6

Jerusalem

He served eleven years at the Holy Sepulchre. In March 1937 he was appointed cantor of the Coptic church at the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem, and went there with his family; in 1938 Metropolitan Theophilus of Jerusalem made him head of the deacons of the see. He stayed until 1948.7 Living among the other Christian churches there, Yusuf Manṣur writes, he learned ancient and modern Greek, and scholars of the language bore witness to his Greek, among them Yassa ʿAbd al-Masih, Fr. Jacob Muyser, the psaltis Demetrios and M. Yanni Psaltopoulos.8

The cathedral in Azbakiyya

He came back to the patriarch’s church. In October 1948 Pope Joseph II appointed him cantor of the Great Church of St. Mark in Azbakiyya, then the patriarchal cathedral. In that patriarch’s time he and some of the deacons of the church set down the hymns in musical notation and recorded them on discs; he could pick out and play the hymns on the oud with great skill, and he handed the hymns of the church to three generations of deacons.9 Yusuf Manṣur, who wrote his obituary, says that he studied for a long time under Mikhail and after him taught the hymns and the liturgy at the Clerical College for several years; that he had a fine musical ear; that he led the deacons with great skill on the feasts broadcast on radio and at ordinations; and that he had “a rare gift for handing on the hymns and the liturgy.”10 Ramzy names him among Mikhail’s pupils.11

Three patriarchs gave him work to do. Pope Cyril VI asked him to record the first teaching tape of the liturgy for the churches abroad that were then being founded, and in his time Fahim helped to found the League of Cantors of the Coptic Orthodox Church.1213 Pope Shenouda III charged him with teaching the whole of the liturgy to the priests he ordained for Cairo and Alexandria: the new priests went with him to the Monastery of the Syrians in Wadi al-Natrun for their forty days, and when they had gone the monks kept him another week to learn the psalmody from him, which is why, his biographer writes, so many monks of that monastery sing the hymns exactly.14 The Coptic Hymns Guide adds that Shenouda III also sent him to teach the hymns and rites to the monks of the Monastery of St. Mina at Mariout, where he taught them at midday, seated before them at the shrine of Cyril VI, for about three hours.15

He prayed the hymns as he sang them. When he was asked to record hymns for the library of St. Mina’s monastery, he refused to sit and stood throughout. He kept the late fasting liturgies with Cyril VI although he was diabetic; when deacons begged him to take something sweet, he answered, “How can I pray the liturgy having eaten? I will keep the fast, and the Lord can give me health.”16

His repose

He sang at the cathedral until the week he reposed. He lived in a house facing St. Mark’s Church and went to the early daily liturgy there until Tuesday 26 January 1999, when he fell ill. He was taken to hospital on 1 February and reposed on 5 February 1999, at eighty-nine; the funeral was held at the church on 6 February, with five metropolitans and bishops present.1718 He had lived through six patriarchs, from Cyril V to Shenouda III.19 On this site you can hear his recordings.

Photographs

A grey-haired man in a blue suit plays the cymbals among deacons in white vestments holding candles and books
Muʿallim Fahim Girgis with the cymbals, leading the deacons in the hymns.From Facebook, where the original is.
An elderly man with white hair in a dark suit and tie
Archdeacon Fahim Girgis Rizk, with the notice of his repose in al-Kirāza.al-Kirāza 27, nos. 7-8, Cairo, 26 February 1999, p. 16.
A faded sepia photograph of three men seated in front and two standing behind them, the man in the center in dark glasses and a tarbush with a cane
Muʿallim Mikhail in the center, with Muʿallim Ṣadiq on the right and Muʿallim Fahim on the left, as the Hymns Guide names them.From the Coptic Hymns Guide, where the original is.
Bishops in vestments and men in tarbushes at a consecration; a blind old man in dark glasses among them
The consecration of Anba Yoannes, Metropolitan of Giza and Qalyubiyya: Muʿallim Fahim beside Muʿallim Mikhail Girgis al-Batanuni, with Anba Thomas, Metropolitan of Gharbiyya and Buhayra, and Anba Demetrius, Metropolitan of Menoufia, before them.From a memorial booklet of Muʿallim Fahim, as posted in the Coptic Hymns Guide’s album of him, where the original is.
An elderly man in a grey jacket and brown waistcoat holds a pair of cymbals before an icon of the Virgin and Child
Muʿallim Fahim Girgis Rizk with cymbals.From the Coptic Hymns Guide, where the original is.
Bishops in vestments facing one another at a consecration
The consecration of Anba Yoannes, Metropolitan of Giza and Qalyubiyya, by Pope Joseph II, with Anba Pachomius of Dayr al-Muharraq, Anba Abraam of Luxor, Esna and Aswan, and Anba Arsenius of the Monastery of St. Paul.From a memorial booklet of Muʿallim Fahim, as posted in the Coptic Hymns Guide’s album of him, where the original is.
A bishop in vestments beside the altar, with men behind him
The liturgy of the consecration of Anba Basilius, Metropolitan of Jerusalem, Sunday 30 May 1959.From a memorial booklet of Muʿallim Fahim, as posted in the Coptic Hymns Guide’s album of him, where the original is.
Deacons in white vestments, one in dark glasses reading from a book at a lectern
The Easter liturgy, 1960.From a memorial booklet of Muʿallim Fahim, as posted in the Coptic Hymns Guide’s album of him, where the original is.
Deacons in white vestments and men in uniform outside a church
The farewell to Emperor Haile Selassie, with Pope Cyril VI, 1964.From a memorial booklet of Muʿallim Fahim, as posted in the Coptic Hymns Guide’s album of him, where the original is.
A seated patriarch with bishops, deacons and laymen around him
The eve of the anniversary of the consecration of Pope Cyril VI, 9 May 1965.From a memorial booklet of Muʿallim Fahim, as posted in the Coptic Hymns Guide’s album of him, where the original is.
A patriarch in a black cap with a group of men in suits, a child among them
With the deacons of St. Mark’s Church around Pope Cyril VI, to greet him for Christmas, 1969.From a memorial booklet of Muʿallim Fahim, as posted in the Coptic Hymns Guide’s album of him, where the original is.
Men in suits standing around a bishop in a room
The board of the League of Cantors congratulating Pope Shenouda III on his consecration, at the papal residence in Azbakiyya, Thursday 18 November 1971.From a memorial booklet of Muʿallim Fahim, as posted in the Coptic Hymns Guide’s album of him, where the original is.
Pope Shenouda III at a microphone with men behind him
With Pope Shenouda III as he leads the prayer of thanksgiving at the Great Church of St. Mark in Azbakiyya.From a memorial booklet of Muʿallim Fahim, as posted in the Coptic Hymns Guide’s album of him, where the original is.
An old man in a dark suit stands at a carved shrine, his hand on its inscribed side
Chanting a tamjid before the shrine of Pope Cyril VI at the monastery.From a memorial booklet of Muʿallim Fahim, as posted in the Coptic Hymns Guide’s album of him, where the original is.

Notes

  1. Manṣur, al-Kirāza 1999, p. 16. ↩
  2. L. Moftah, “Scholars of Music”, para. 34. ↩
  3. Badie, al-Kirāza, 1 Feb. 2008, p. 17, tr. ours. ↩
  4. Hymns Guide, Fahim Girgis, biography. ↩
  5. Badie, al-Kirāza, 1 Feb. 2008, p. 17. ↩
  6. Badie, al-Kirāza, 1 Feb. 2008, p. 17. ↩
  7. Badie, al-Kirāza, 1 Feb. 2008, p. 17. ↩
  8. Manṣur, al-Kirāza 1999, p. 16. ↩
  9. Badie, al-Kirāza, 1 Feb. 2008, p. 17. ↩
  10. Manṣur, al-Kirāza 1999, p. 16, tr. ours. ↩
  11. Ramzy, “A Musical Inheritance”, para. 5. ↩
  12. Manṣur, al-Kirāza 1999, p. 16. ↩
  13. Badie, al-Kirāza, 1 Feb. 2008, p. 17. ↩
  14. Badie, al-Kirāza, 1 Feb. 2008, p. 17. ↩
  15. Hymns Guide, Fahim Girgis, biography. ↩
  16. Badie, al-Kirāza, 1 Feb. 2008, p. 17, tr. ours. ↩
  17. Badie, al-Kirāza, 1 Feb. 2008, p. 17. ↩
  18. Manṣur, al-Kirāza 1999, p. 16. ↩
  19. Badie, al-Kirāza, 1 Feb. 2008, p. 17. ↩

Sources

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