More on Coptic Tensions in Egypt

If it seems as if this blog has devoted more time to Coptic-Muslim issues this year, it is because Coptic-Muslim issues in the last six months or so have reached levels of tension, and vitriol, rare in recent times. As a perusal of this blog's Copts topic will reveal, we've had the dispute betweeen church and state over divorce, and then its sudden resolution; the long-running and still tense dispute over the Camillia Shehata "conversion" (or non-conversion?); Bishop Bishoy's foot-in-mouth provocation of Muslims and, in response, an Al-Azhar Salafi group questioning Christians' right to citizenship, as well as Pope Shenouda's criticism/non-criticism of Bishoy.

And that's just since July: if you go back to January you had the Nag Hammadi killings.

Adding to all this, of course, is the presumably imminent double succession: Husni Mubarak is 82 and Pope Shenouda III is 87, and both are in uncertain health. Certainly Coptic-Muslim tensions have not been exacerbated to this degree since 1981, when Anwar Sadat deposed Shenouda and sent him to a desert monastery, though these days the Church and State tend to be on the same side, with Islamists and ordinary Muslims on the other.

In the midst of this, here are a couple of additions: First, Mariz Tadros has a good summary of the issues at MERIP. It may be easier to read it than to click on all my blogpost links above.

Now, there's s story in yesterday's Al-Masry al-Youm that may or may not relate to the internal and external maneuverings of the Church. It seems Bishop Theodosius of Giza left Wednesday for Jerusalem, and a pilgrimage to Christian sites there. It also reports that he has previously visited the Coptic Bishop of Jerusalem and has other Israeli visas in his passport.

Now, after he Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, Pope Shenouda banned Copts from making pilgrimage to Jerusalem, in part over the Palestinian issue, in part because the Coptic Church blames Israel for taking sides in a religios turf dispute. The Coptic Church and its daughter Church, the Church of Ethiopia, have long engaged in a bitter dispute over the Deir al-Sultan, a monastery that occupies part of the rooftop of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Israel backed the Ethiopians, jand they occupy the Deir today, impoverished and unable to enter the Church below because the Copts bar the way. So in theory at least, Bishop Theodosius is, as the headline claims, defying a papal ban.

But I'm struck by several things. First, if this list of the Coptic Holy Synod is in fact current, Theodosius is only the Auxiliary Bishop of Giza, number 46 on the list in seniority while Metropolitan Domadius of Giza is number four. Second, if he has done this one or more times before without being disciplined, it may well be that he is serving as a liaison to the Coptic Church of Jerusalem; the papal ban applied to individual Copts, but perhaps not to hierarchy on Church business.

In any event, and despite the fact that Al-Masry al-Youm has some Coptic ownership and a generally favorable approach, I suspect this report is more a symptom of current high levels of attention to things Coptic, rather than a real story of episcopal defiance. Let's see if there is any follow-up.