MARCO ibn al-KANBAR. — Coptic priest, d. 1208. He upheld the necessity of auricular confession against the abuse of the so-called confessio ad l'hirubulum. His principal opponent was MICHAEL, metropolitan of Damietta, whose authority long maintained this abuse in the Coptic Church. Other Monophysites, however, took his part, namely the Armenian ABŪ SALĪ and the Jacobite patriarch MICHAEL the Syrian.
BIBL.: G. Graf, Ein Reformversuch innerhalb der koptischen Kirche im zwölften Jahrhundert, Paderborn 1923, pp. 26-34; M. Jugie, Monophysite (Eglise Copte), in DThC, X, cols. 2286-88. Maurizio Gordillo