Ten years into his papacy, in 1981, Pope Shenouda III had famously fallen out with President Anwar Sadat of Egypt. The relationship between the two men deteriorated for several reasons.
- Since coming to power, President Sadat had started encouraging the growth of Islamism in the country as means to fight communist groups and solidify his own power. During the term of office of Sadat's predecessor,Gamal Abdul Nasser, Islamic groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood had been suppressed.
- Sadat had also pushed forward a constitutional amendment that would have allowed him to stand for re-election as President more than twice. To make the constitutional amendment more appealing to the populace, Sadat bundled it with another constitutional amendment declaring Islamic Sharia law the main source of legislation, an action viewed as a step towards a more radically Islamic Egypt.
- Under Sadat, the Government released a census in 1977 that understated the number of Christians even contradicting earlier released censuses.
- The years from 1972 to 1981 saw an escalation of violence against the Christians of Egypt culminating in a massacre of Christians in a poor district of Cairo in 1981.
- Pope Shenouda was of the opinion that Sadat's peace treaty with Israel was ill-timed and should have been part of a larger comprehensive peace in the Middle East.
Sadat was seen by Shenouda as becoming increasingly dictatorial following his acclaim in the international arena for the peace accord with Israel. In September 1981 Sadat rescinded the presidential decree of 1971 recognizing Shenouda as Pope of Alexandria, and Shenouda was banished by Sadat to an ancient desert monastery. However, the Christians of Egypt continued to view Shenouda as their Pope and only leader, and he continued to conduct his duties from his desert monastery: ecclesiastically, Sadat's decision was ineffective. Sadat was assassinated a month later, on 6 October 1981, by Islamic extremists, and in January 1985 Pope Shenouda III was fully reinstated by Sadat's successor, Hosni Mubarak.
Israel[edit]
Pope Shenouda III had arguments with then President Anwar Sadat over both the Camp David Accords and what he said was the president's deficient response to growing Islamism.[8] After a series of protests that led president Sadat to depose Pope Shenouda III, he was exiled by Sadat and sent to the Nitrian Desert, to return three years after Sadat's assassination following an amnesty by Sadat's successor Hosni Mubarak.
His stance toward Israel was encapsulated by his words:
He also warned that Copts who visited Jerusalem would face excommunication on the premise that there was "no pilgrimage duty in Christianity and it is not a religious pillar, so since this visit can do harm to our national cause and [to the] Muslim and Christian people then we better not visit Jerusalem." He added that Copts should only go to Jerusalem after peace was established in the region.[9] Some of the Coptic property within the compound of theChurch of the Holy Sepulchre (including the Coptic monastery known as Deir El-Sultan) was delegated to theEthiopian Orthodox Church. Upon the application of some bishops, the Coptic Orthodox Holy Synod, based on the direction of Pope Shenouda III, also decided to ask Copts not to visit Jerusalem until the Church possessions and the monastery be returned. In 2006, the Holy Synod renewed the decree, urging Copts not to visit the Christian holy places in Israel, including Jerusalem.[10]
His view on Palestinian suicide bombers was that it was a "natural reaction to the pressure and depression in which Palestinians live. They do not see any alternative but to explode themselves in the face of an enemy that uses all the means of power with no mercy."[9]
Suicide bombers[edit]
In the light of the September 11 attacks, he said of suicide bombing as a tactic that:[9]
Persecution of Christianity in Egypt in his time[edit]
A large number of Muslims in Egypt unambiguously consider all non-Muslim religions as heresy. Persecution against Christians during Pope Shenouda III's reign was chiefly conducted by private individuals and organizations, especially radical Salafis, although the state continued to enforce long-standing discriminatory policies and engage in occasional Christian-baiting. Particularly in Upper Egypt, the rise in extremist Salafi groups such as the Gama'at Islamiya during the 1980s was accompanied by attacks on Copts and on Coptic churches. The police have been accused of siding with the attackers in some of these cases.[11]
Hundreds of Christian Coptic girls have been kidnapped and forcibly converted to Islam, as well as being victims of rape and forced marriage to Muslim men.[12][13]
On Sunday, 2 January 2000, 21 Coptic Christians in Kosheh village in Upper (southern) Egypt, 450 kilometers south of Cairo, were massacred by Salafists. Christian properties were also burned.[14][citation needed]. Later, a criminal court in Sohag governorate released all 89 defendants charged in the New Year's massacre in Kosheh without bail. Pope Shenouda III rejected the verdict openly, and told reporters, "We want to challenge this ruling. We don't accept it." As the court sentence could not be appealed, Pope Shenouda III said: "We will appeal this sentence before God."[15]
In April 2006, one person was killed and twelve injured in simultaneous knife attacks on three Coptic churches in Alexandria.[16]
In November 2008, several thousand Muslims attacked a Coptic church in a suburb of Cairo on the day of its inauguration, forcing 800 Coptic Christians to barricade themselves in.[17]
In April 2009, two Christian men were shot dead and another was injured by Muslim men after an Easter vigil in the south of Egypt.[18]
On 18 September 2009, a Muslim man called Osama Araban beheaded a Coptic Christian man in the village of Bagour, and injured 2 others in 2 different villages. He was arrested the following day.[19]
On the eve of 7 January 2010, after the Eastern Christmas Mass finished (which finishes around midnight), Copts were going out of Mar-Yuhanna (St. John) church in Nag Hammadi city when three Muslim men in a car near the church opened fire killing 8 Christians and injuring another 10.[20][21]
On New Year's Day 2011, just 20 minutes after midnight as Christians were leaving a Coptic Orthodox Church in the city of Alexandria after a New Year's Eve service a car bomb exploded in front of the Church killing more than 23 and injuring more than 75.[22][23][24]
On 7 May 2011, an armed group of Islamists, including Salafists, attacked and set fire to two churches includingSaint Menas Coptic Orthodox Christian Church and the Coptic Church of the Holy Virgin, in Cairo. The attacks resulted in the deaths of 12 people and more than 230 wounded. It is reported that the events were triggered by a mixed marriage between a Christian woman and a Muslim man.[25]
Successive Egyptian governments have long hand in place laws that hampered the freedom of Christian worship and restricted the right to build or even renovate churches. They maintained and enforced an Ottoman eraHamayouni Decree restrictions on building or repairing churches. These governments also restricted Christians from senior government, diplomatic, military, and educational positions, and there has been increasing discrimination in the private sector.[12][26] The government allowed various media outlets to attack Christianity and restricted Christians access to the state-controlled media to defent themselves or speak their minds.[26]
Security agencies sporadically persecuted Muslim converts to Christianity.[26] In Egypt the government does not officially recognize conversions from Islam to Christianity; because certain interfaith marriages are not allowed either, this prevents marriages between converts to Christianity and those born in Christian communities, and also results in the children of Christian converts being classified as Muslims and given a Muslim education.[26]
Many colleges dictate quotas for Coptic students, often around 1 or 2% despite the group making up as much as 15% of the country's population[citation needed]. There is also a separate tax-funded education system called Al Azhar, catering to students from elementary to college level, which accepts no Christian Coptic students, teachers or administrators.
See also: Persecution of Copts
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