Mark Ibn Kunbar

Mark ad-Darir ibn Mauhub, or Mark Ibn Kunbar , died 1208, also known as Mark the Blind, was a 12th-century Coptic priest and preacher. He came into conflict with both Pope John V and Pope Mark III of Alexandria for preaching against the practice of private confession of sins, and was excommunicated.

Life Mark was most likely born in Sunbat, near Zefta, Gharbia, Egypt. He was likely born blind, thus the epithet.

He was made priest by the bishop of Damietta. As priest, Mark Ibn Kunbar preached against the common practice of taking censers into personal homes for the confession of sins. Traditionally, sins were confessed at a confessional, and a censer would be placed nearby for the purpose of purifying the surrounding air. Mark Ibn Kunbar objected strongly to this form of private confession, insisting that a priest must be present for the absolution of sins. He was an eloquent preacher, and drew many crowds in Egypt who heard his sermons and received from him absolution from their sins. Tensions rose between Mark Ibn Kunbar and the then Pope John V of Alexandria, head of the Coptic church, resulting in the excommunication of Mark Ibn Kunbar on the false grounds of sexual immorality. Nevertheless, Mark Ibn Kunbar continued to preach and draw crowds. During this time he also wrote books and commentaries on the Bible, including translations of the Bible from Coptic to Arabic. However, Pope Mark accepted arbitration of a trial by Patriarch Michael I of Antioch, who sided with neither party. His commentaries were often wrongly attributed to Cyril of Alexandria or Ephrem the Syrian by ancient scribes. Mark employed allegorical interpretation methods and typological exegesis in his commentaries, and he often noted how the Pentateuch showed the Trinity, Jesus Christ, church institutions, and ascetic monastic life. The commentaries also strongly show Mark's unique convictions, like confession to a priest and doing penance. The commentary's Christology is Chalcedonian, and the verses are organized according to the traditional Melkite liturgical divisions, leading scholars to believe that he wrote the commentary after he became a Melkite.

Legacy The conflict that Mark Ibn Kunbar raised is now seen as the first time auricular confession was an important topic in Coptic history. Although Mark Ibn Kunbar was firmly rejected and his followers dispersed, his discussion on the necessity of confession to a priest carried on to the next century in the writings of Pope Cyril III of Alexandria, who published Mark Ibn Kunbar's Book of the Master and Disciple. Mark's doctrine of auricular confession eventually became the official teaching of the Coptic church.

John Mason Neale, a nineteenth-century scholar, has compared Mark Ibn Kunbar with the seventeenth-century English clergyman William Chillingworth because of the controversies and defiance of the church of both men.

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