MARCO ibn al-Kanbar. — Coptic priest, d. in 1208. He upheld the necessity of auricular confession against the abuse of the so-called confessio ad thuribulum. His principal adversary was Michele, metropolitan of Damietta, whose authority caused this abuse to prevail for a long time in the Coptic Church. Other Monophysites, namely the Armenian Abū Salī and the Jacobite patriarch Michele Siro, came to his defense.
BIBL.: G. Graf, Ein Reformversuch innerhalb der hoptischen Kirche im zwölften Jahrhundert, Paderborn 1923, pp. 26–34; M. Jugic, Monophysite (Eglise Copte), in DThC, X, cols. 2286–88.