Fr Marcus Daoud (1897–1986) was a church educator, Coptic revivalist and patristics scholar. Hegumen Marcos Daoud was an important figure in the revivalist movement the Society of Friends of the Holy Bible and a pioneering scholar of patristics and church history. Born in 1897 in Imbaba, Giza, Hafez Daoud had the blessing of being baptised by Pope Kyrillos V.[fn]Boulos Ayad, “Father Marcos Daoud”, 3.[/fn]

He joined the Society of the Friends of the Holy Bible in 1912, at the age of fifteen, and was elected its secretary in 1921.[fn]Boulos Ayad, “Father Marcos Daoud”, 4.[/fn]

In 1944, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia invited Hafez Daoud to found a theological seminary in Addis Ababa, where he would go on to teach for 10 years. Among the faculty he took to teach with him was Saad Aziz, who would later be ordained as Bishop Samuel. He returned briefly to Egypt in 1948 and was ordained a priest by Anba Abram of Giza, before returning to continue his educational work.[fn]Boulos Ayad, “Father Marcos Daoud”, 5–6.[/fn]

He produced a great many works which are still in print, including Arabic translations of patristic texts and the commentaries of F. B. Meyer.