Phoebe Farag Mikhail

Phoebe Farag Mikhail has served in the Coptic Orthodox Church for 28 years, twelve of them as a clergy wife. She speaks at conferences, retreats and meetings on a variety of spiritual topics, most recently on joy and the practices of the Orthodox Church that help us practice joy. These include praying the hours, the Psalms, arrow prayers, thanksgiving, hospitality, giving, singing praises, and repentance. She has also spoken about the sacraments and on various topics of early church history.

She is the author of Putting Joy into Practice: Seven Ways to Lift Your Spirit from the Early Church, published by Paraclete Press in April 2019. She has contributed to the anthology Darkness is as Light, published by Park End Press in October 2020. She also edited the revised edition of His Holiness Pope Shenouda’s book, The Life of Repentance and Purity, translated by His Grace Bishop Suriel and published by St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press in 2013. She has written many articles and essays for publications that include Christianity Today, Faith & Leadership, Plough, and Talking Writing Magazine. She blogs regularly at her personal blog, Being in Community (beingincommunity.com), where she also features guest posts from a diversity of contributors.

Phoebe holds a B.A. in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University and an M.A. in International Education Development from the George Washington University. She has worked and consulted in the field of international development, education, advocacy, governance, diplomacy and human rights for over 20 years. From 2007 to 2013, under the auspices of His Eminence Metropolitan Serapion, Phoebe represented the Coptic Orthodox Church in the Justice for Women Working Group of the National Council of Churches. She also represented the Church at the World Council of Churches Orthodox Women’s conference in Thessalonika, Greece in 2008. Through this conference she published an essay in the collection, Many Women Were Also There: The Participation of Orthodox Women in the Ecumenical Movement.

In addition to speaking, writing and consulting, Phoebe teaches academic writing and research for Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, NJ and theological writing and research for Holy Sophia University. She is also an instructor and thesis tutor at the Diplo Foundation. She takes courses at Pope Shenouda III Coptic Orthodox Theological Seminary in New Jersey. She currently serves at St. Antonious & St. Mina Coptic Orthodox Church in East Rutherford, NJ.