ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author presents a conversation that he had nearly a quarter of century ago with a Coptic deacon in Oxford. He was optimistic about the prospects of an agreement being reached between the Chalcedonian and the non-Chalcedonian Churches. He remarked that one practical problem would be the fact that in a number of our liturgical texts we denounced by name some of the leading Saints of each others' Churches. He said that the Copts had no such hymns. This is not however the case with the Churches of the Byzantine tradition, and he have vivid memories of the enthusiastic way the monks of the Holy Mountain sing hymns to lively and cheerful melodies denouncing leading heretics from Arius in the fourth century to John the Grammarian in the ninth.
