Pope Shenouda highlights Egypt's religious tolerance; improvements needed
Egypt, Politics, 5/31/2002

Egypt's highest Coptic authority has praised religious harmony in Egypt, strongly dismissing Western media allegations about religious discrimination between Muslims and Christians in the country.

In an interview with Editor-in-Chief of al-Gomhuria daily, Pope Shenouda III paid tribute to President Hosni Mubarak, describing him as a stalwart of national unity. "Relations between Muslim and Coptic figures are excellent. President Mubarak is an enemy of all sorts of extremism, bigotry and discrimination. He always positively responds to our demands," Pope Shenouda told Ragab, who is also the editor-in-chief of Mayo weekly, the mouthpiece of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP).

"We have good relations with ministers, senior officials as well as Muslim leaders," he said.

The Coptic religious leader also described as "unique" his relationship with the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Sheikh Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, the highest Muslim authority in Egypt.

The relationship between the Orthodox Coptic Church and Al-Azhar mosque is historical, Pope Shenouda said in the interview, which appears concurrently in the weekly edition of Al-Gomhuria newspaper today.

"In the 1919 uprising against the British occupation, priests went to Al-Azhar mosque and addressed the people there. Our churches also used to host Sheikhs from Al-Azhar who made similar addresses," the Pope recalled.

He added that the Egyptian leader instructed the creation of a committee with the Ministry of Waqfs (religious endowments) to probe disputes over Coptic endowments.

However, Pope Shenouda regretted the poor representation of Copts in the legislature and municipal councils.

"Copts rarely make it in elections either in parliament, local councils or even professional syndicates. The representation of Copts in these councils is very inadequate and the state should find a way to redress this imbalance," he said.

The Pope proposed several means of increasing Coptic representation in these councils. "For instance, residents of the densely populated Shoubra suburb in Cairo are mainly Copts but most of them do not have voting cards. The government should ease the procedures of obtaining these cards to encourage them to vote in elections," he said.

"I'm not asking for special political privileges for Copts. But a greater Coptic participation (in legislative councils) will enhance Egypt's reputation," he said.

The Pope argued that extremists carrying out attacks against Copts or Coptic establishments mar the image of Egypt and also violate Islam's spirit of tolerance.

"In the presence of advanced means of communications it's difficult to suppress reporting of such attacks. Even if the Egyptian media underreport them, foreign media will have them widely publicised," he said.

However, he added that the government was doing its best to contain these attacks.

"When a church was attacked in Maghagha (in south Egypt), the government quickly renovated the damaged building. But the perpetrators of these attacks inflict more damage on Egypt's reputation than Coptic interests. Thank God such attacks have remarkably declined," Shenouda told Samir Ragab in the interview.

"Frankness is needed to avoid the recurrence of these unfortunate incidents," he added.

Pope Shenouda said that Copts face no difficulty in building or renovating churches in Egypt, despite the application of an Ottoman-era law which places some restrictions on this process.

He elaborated that the Ottoman law had not banned the building of churches, but requested Copts to obtain certain permissions before doing this.

"The problems were not caused by the law but by the Interior Ministry undersecretary in 1938 who imposed 10 conditions to complicate this process. These conditions are sometimes misused," he said.

"But at present, the President removed restrictions on the building and renovation of churches. A couple of years ago, Western media claimed that we have a problem (in building new churches). We contacted them and stressed that we build and renovate our churches very easily," he said.

Pope Shenouda III also said that the Coptic Church in Egypt was maintaining strong relations with Coptic expatriates especially in the United States and Canada.

"There are two main goals of keeping strong contacts with them. The first is to protect them and their offspring from the tendency to abuse freedom, which might occasionally result in moral deviation. Secondly, we want to keep them linked to their home country," he said.

He added that the Coptic Church was also building and sponsoring churches in several European countries like the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Austria, Germany and Greece.

Other churches are also established in Australia and several African countries, he said.

Pope Shenouda also said that the Church was advocating teaching the Arabic language among expatriate Copts to maintain their relationship with their homeland.

Shenouda said that Coptic expatriates could help establish Egyptian and Arab pressure groups in the countries where they live.

"We should not lose those expatriates by attacking them. On the contrary, we have to make the best use of them to promote our national interests," he said.

He added that an Egyptian or Arab lobby in a big power like the United States would help counter the increasing influence of the Israel in this country.

Previous Stories:
  Pope Shenouda condemns lax western stance on attacks on Nativity Church   (4/27/2002)
  Court suspension of two persons for religious belief   (3/1/2002)
  Pope Shenouda warns against Israeli covetous eyes   (5/28/2001)
  American delegation finds Copts and Muslims live in peace   (3/31/2001)

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