Amma, Give Me a Word

Abstract This article highlights how Coptic women in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada are reaching for theological texts to negotiate a distinctly modern construction of feminine piety which contends with intergenerational migration-induced anxieties, diasporic ambivalence, contemporary “culture war” politics, and their pursuits of belonging and heavenly salvation. The young Coptic women in this movement do not think about their agency as expressed through a desire for liberation from the institution of the church but as the freedom to pursue holiness and heavenly citizenship in the public life of the church in ways that are comparable to what is afforded to the men in their community. By drawing on theological texts, Coptic women in Mississauga aim to challenge their marginalization and reimagine feminine piety for the diasporic moment.