A Different Time in State-Coptic Relations: Nasser's Friendship with Pope Kyrillos VI

Left to Right: Vice President Anwar Sadat, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, President Gamal Abdel Nasser, Coptic Pope Kyrillos VI at the dedication of the new Cathedral of St. Mark in Abbasiyya, 1968

In this week of heightened tension between the Egyptian Army and State and the Coptic Church, and in keeping with my post the other day about General Fuad Aziz Ghali, an Egyptian general, war hero, governor, and Copt, I thought I'd also note, in another echo of better days, the friendship and close working relationship between President Gamal Abdel Nasser (d. 1970) and Coptic Pope Kyrillos (Cyril) VI (d. 1971).

Nasser should need no introduction; if he does, reading the posts under my Nasser label would be a good place to start. Non-Coptic readers my be unfamiliar with Kyrillos, but Copts today venerate him as a 20th century saint. His papacy lasted only from 1959 to 1971 (compared with his successor, Shenouda III, who was enthroned early in the Sadat Presidency and has now outlasted the nearly interminable Mubarak Presidency). Shenouda's tenure has been stormy: clashes with Sadat, a deposition from the See of St. Mark and later restoration under Mubarak; accusations he then became too supportive of Mubarak; theological disputes within the Church, etc. Kyrillos' predecessor, Yusab (Joseph) II, was worse: a papacy ridden with corruption and scandal, leading to his bizarre kidnapping and, after his return, his deposition by the Holy Synod and the lay Maglis al-Milli, in 1956. The throne of Saint Mark was vacant from 1956 to 1959. Kyrillos' papacy lay entirely within the Presidency of Nasser. They became friends, and by many accounts, Nasser was willing to see the Pope with little prior arrangement. These stills and 1960 video show none of the stiffness Shenouda's meetings with Sadat and Mubarak usually display:



A major issue has always been an old, Ottoman-era requirement that no new churches may be built without permission of the head of state. Nasser was liberal on the issue. Mohamed Heikal in Autumn of Fury (not always an utterly reliable witness) says Nasser asked Kyrillos how many churches he needed a year, and Kyrillos said between 20 and 30. Nasser said, right, you can build 25. True or not, it reflects the reality.

One of the great goals of the Pope's reign was to build a new Cathedral of Saint Mark to replace the decaying, cramped one in Ezbekiyya. Nasser strongly supported this as a matter of national pride. According to Heikal again, Nasser provided LE 500,000 (worth more in those days), half in cash and half in state-owned contractors' donated time. The Cathedral was dedicated in 1968. Video, showing the arrival of Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia (unlike Shenouda, which is a story for another day, Ethiopians venerated Kyrillos for granting them their own Ethiopian Patriarch after centuries of always having one appointed from Egypt) and Nasser and Kyrillos at the dedication. (Note: watch carefully for the rare walk-ons of Anwar Sadat. It's not just in the US that Vice Presidents aren't that visible.)



In Nasser's day, the state helped pay for the great Cathedral (the largest in the Middle East and Africa). Today, building a new church provokes violence and state intervention.

Don't get me wrong: Nasser was a dictator who imprisoned many people. But during that brief period of Nasser and Kyrillos working together, Coptic-State relations were excellent.

"The Oldest Tune in History"?

The Egypt Independent has a provocative piece on Coptic music entitled "Humming the Oldest Tune in History."

The title refers to the assertion made in the article that ritual music from Pharaonic Egypt was often incorporated into Christian liturgy by changing the words but retaining the Pharaonic tune. Given the frequency with which Western "pagan" customs were "baptized" into Christian customs and symbols in Western Europe (Easter eggs and Christmas trees among them), and given the continuity of the Egyptian language from Demotic into Coptic in Late Antiquity, and Coptic use of some Pharaonic symbolism such as the ankh, there doesn't seem to be anything incredible about it. I'll admit, I'd like to know the documentary sources for these assertions, though:

Talking about Coptic music is in fact a conversation about the pharaonic musical heritage formulated over the millennia, according to composer George Kyrillos, a deacon at the Virgin Mary Church in Maadi and the first person to musically document Coptic hymns successfully.

“Coptic music is part of the world’s cultural heritage, just like the [Giza] pyramids,” says Kyrillos.

The origin of the “Calvary” hymn sung on Good Friday every year, for instance, is a pharaonic melody that priests played as they buried the ancient Egyptian kings. Early Copts, familiar with the tune, continued using it on Good Friday, when Jesus Christ’s crucifixion and burial is remembered.

Similarly, the Coptic Orthodox Church inherited most pharaonic prayer hymns with the introduction of Christianity into Egypt, despite the pagan origins of the original tunes, according to Christian faith. They were passed on sonically from one Coptic generation to the next.

During Ramadan, we discussed a somewhat similar claim about a Muslim Ramadan chant.

While I don't know if these claims have any solid basis in evidence, it's intriguing, though I'm also unsure if that would make any of these hymns "the oldest tune in history."

The one specific claim  made, though, refers to Coptic hymn sung on Good Friday to mark the burial of Christ, saying it preserves the Pharaonic tune for the burial of a Pharaoh. The Egypt Independent article refers to it by the Latinate term "Calvary," but it's more normally called "Golgotha," Coptic adopting the Aramaic place name.

The Egypt Independent  article lacks any recorded examples, but YouTube  comes through. The first of these clips has the Coptic text and the English, with a background of religious Passion imagery; the second shows the hymn in context of the Coptic Good Friday ritual.

Coptic Church's Synod Recognizes Two Modern Saints

The Coptic Church's Holy Synod, consisting of the bishops, has recognized the sainthood of two modern figures who had already been widely venerated by the Coptic faithful. And no, Gamal Abdel Nasser was not one of them, but Pope Kyrillos (Cyril) VI, shown with Nasser in this 1965 photo, was. The Coptic Pope from 1959 to 1971, prior to the late Pope Shenouda III who reigned from 1971 to last year, and the predecessor once removed of current Pope Tawadros II, has been widely acclaimed as a saintly figure among the Coptic faithful.

His good relationship with Nasser is often cited as a marked contrast to Church-State relations in the Sadat and Mubarak era and the awkward situation since the election of President Morsi. Nasser was a key patron of the building of the new Coptic Cathedral in Abbasiyya (the Pope and the President are shown above laying the cornerstone in 1965, and below, with Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie and Anwar Sadat at the dedication, 1968).
I'm a little uncertain about one thing: traditionally formal canonization of saints in the Coptic Church had to wait for 50 years after the person's death, while Pope Kyrillos died in 1971, 42 years ago. Perhaps they are making an exception due to the fact that he has long been acclaimed a saint by popular opinion.

The other figure is less well known outside Coptic circles: Archdeacon Habib Girgis (1876-1951), who played several key roles in the renaissance of the Coptic Church in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Church had become calcified through the centuries, with poorly educated priests and Coptic faithful with little understanding of their Church, and it was losing adherents to Catholic and Protestant missionary efforts.

Habib Girgis

During the half-century long papacy of Pope Cyril V (Pope 1874-1927), both the papacy and the Coptic laity committed themselves to modernizing the church. The emergence of the Maglis Milli, a Coptic layman's council, created friction with the clergy, but the Pope also moved to improve education, founding the Coptic Theological School of Alexandria. Habib Girgis became its first student, and years later, its second head. He was consecrated an archdeacon as well.

Girgis as an Archdeacon

Girgis was also closely involved in the foundation of the Coptic Sunday School Movement, which sought to educate the faithful as the Theological School educated the clergy. He was one of a number of Coptic figures, clerics and laymen alike, who helped revive interest among Copts in their own tradition; I've written before about another figure from the Coptic revival: Claudius Labib, who sought to bring back the Coptic language.

How the Copts Will Choose their Next Pope

With the death of Pope Shenouda III this weekend (see my appreciation of Shenouda here), the Coptic Church of Egypt embarks on a process for choosing the next Pope, who will be the 118th successor of Saint Mark the Evangelist. Since Shenouda reigned for 40 years, it has been a long time since the process of succession has been implemented, so even Copts may need to familiarize themselves with the process.

It is a process likely to take several months at least. There are reports suggesting the Church may delay the election until after the election of an Egyptian President, no excessive delay may be required: the President should be chosen by July 1, while in 1971 the interval between the death of Pope Kyrillos VI and the election of Shenouda was eight months. (It can take even longer; in 1956-59 it took more than two years.) The basic rules currently in force were laid down by a Presidential decree of 1957 by Gamal Abdel Nasser, (link is in Arabic), prior to the election of Kyrillos VI.

Acting Pope Bp. Pachomius

The first step in the transition is the election of a locum tenens or Acting Pope who will preside over the Church during the transition. The holder of this post is considered ineligible to be elected Pope since he will have overseen the electoral process, though in the last century there were exceptions to this. The Acting Pope has already been named, Bishop Pachomius (Bakhomious), Metropolitan Archbishop of Buheira.

The Holy Synod — the body of Coptic bishops — is the Church's man ecclessiastical body; the Millet Council (Al-Maglis al-Milli) is the lay body of prominent Copts who have provided a voice for the laity since 1874. These two bodies play a key role in the creation of the electoral council to choose the Pope. Each nominates nine of its members, presided over by the Acting Pope to form a 19-member Council, which receives nominations. These are then voted on by the Holy Synod, the Millet Council, and a third body, created by the 1957 decree, which consists of prominent Copts from each diocese, former Ministers and MPs, and other notables. This body may be the way the state maintains some oversight in the selection process.  At the end of a vetting process, the Electoral Council announces the names of no fewer than five and no more than six or seven candidates. This process can easily occupy three months, so once again little delay is required to postpone the papal election past that of the President.

Under the Presidential decree, the only specified requirements are that the candidates be 40 years old, never married, and have spent at least 15 years as a monk. However, an ancient tradition of the church was to choose the Pope directly from a monastery, not from the bishops (though the bishops themselves are all drawn from the monks, in the Eastern tradition). This was relaxed in the 20th century and several Popes wee elected from the bishops. Shenouda himself was a general bishop (administering a Church-wide department, not an individual diocese). There are some who favor returning to a monks-only rule; others who accept election of a General Bishop but not a Diocesan Bishop, and others who believe precedent allows the election of Diocesan Bishops as well. At least one prominent figure, Bishop Bishoy, is both a General Bishop as Secretary of the Holy Synod and the Diocesan Metropolitan Bishop of Damietta. This eligibility issue is likely to be argued within the Church in the coming weeks and months.

In the Acts of the Apostles, when the eleven remaining Apostles sought to replace Judas Iscariot, they chose a new Apostle by lot. The final decision in the election of a Coptic Pope is still carried out, by ancient tradition, by what is known as the Altar Lot. The Coptic faithful, including their children, gather at the Cathedral of Saint Mark in Abbasiyya. A young boy is randomly chosen from the congregation, blindfolded, and draws a name from a box on the altar. The name drawn becomes the successor of Saint Mark.

Just as Italians love to speculate on the papabile or papal candidates when it is time to elect a Roman Catholic Pope, so Copts speculate about the candidates for their Papacy, and the question of whether Diocesan Bishops are eligible comes into play.  But that will be the subject of a separate post in the coming weeks.

Coptic Pope Shenouda III, 1923-2012

His Holiness Shenouda III, Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of All Africa and the Preaching of Saint Mark, died Saturday at the age of 88. He has long been ailing from back and kidney problems and appeared extremely frail at the Christmas liturgy in January and in more recent appearances, so his passing is not a surprise, but coming at a time of rising Islamist political influence in Egypt and recent tensions between Copts and their Muslim neighbors, the succession of the See of Saint Mark is of considerable political importance to Copts and other Egyptians alike.

Shenouda's reign of over 40 years, 1971-2012, was an unusually long one (though Pope Kyrillos V, 1874-1927, at 52 years holds the record), and his papacy has many accomplishments to boast of: the enormous growth of the Coptic diaspora, and the creation of bishoprics in Europe, the Americas, and Australia; the great expansion of Coptic education and improvement of seminaries at home and abroad, the building of new churches, improvement of ecumenical links with Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, and much more. But he also created controversies throughout his reign as well. He emerged as something of a protégé of the popular and saintly monk Matta al-Maskin, who had once been his confessor, but with whom he had a theological falling out, leading to the banning of some of Matta's work. Beyond such internal Coptic theological issues, most of the controversy surrounding him involved his role in politics, and his very different relationships with the two Presidents whose presidencies coincided almost exactly with his papacy, Anwar Sadat and Husni Mubarak. (Shenouda came to power only a few months after Sadat assumed the Presidency, and survived just over a year after Mubarak's fall.)

His predecessor, Kyrillos VI, had been a close ally and friend of Gamal Abdel Nasser, which I discussed in this post last year.Sadat initially saw Shenouda as an ally, but Shenouda became increasingly critical of discrimination against Copts, attacks on churches, and other issues. When the Coptic diaspora in Europe and America began agitating for Coptic rights just as Sadat was being hailed in the West for his visit to Israel, he blamed Shenouda and the two men became increasingly antagonistic. When Sadat cracked down on all his critics shortly before his assassination in 1981, he deposed Shenouda and sent him into internal exile in the desert monastery of Anba Bishoi in the Wadi Natrun. After Mubarak succeeded Sadat, the restrictions on Shenouda were relaxed, and in 1985 he was fully restored to his papacy. (A Council of Bishops had governed the church in his absence.)

If Shenouda had had a confrontational relationship with Sadat, he had a very different one with Mubarak. Perhaps chastened by his deposition and exile, or genuinely grateful for his restoration, he was an outspoken supporter of Mubarak, even when many of the faithful at home complained of government neglect and tacit toleration of attacks on Copts. Many Copts abroad became critical of the Pope, at least of his political support of Mubarak. In recent years, he even appeared supportive of the project for Gamal Mubarak to succeed his father. Many supporters of the Revolution, especially among Copts, felt the Pope was too cautious too long, though in the end he was cautiously supportive.

The timing alone assures that the choice of his successor will be an important one, not just for Copts but for Coptic-Muslim relations as a whole. A new Pope will, in fact, once again begin a papacy almost at the same time as a new, elected President.

A locum tenens  will be named to run the church during the transition. I will be posting soon on the complex unusual process for choosing the next successor of Saint Mark, and will no doubt find I have more to say about the legacy of Shenouda III. Whatever one's verdict on his reign, it was one of the more eventful in the recent history of the ancient Church of Saint Mark.

Coptic Papal Candidates Down to Three

Yesterday's election involving selected Coptic electors has narrowed the number of candidates for Coptic Pope from five to three. A blindfolded child will choose the Pope in a ceremony known as the Altar Lot on Sunday.

The three finalists are two bishops and one monk. Tomorrow, Copts will begin a three-day fast to precede the Altar Lot on Sunday. The finalists are:

Bishop Rafael. The Auxiliary Bishop of Central Cairo and Heliopolis, Bishop Rafael is the best-known of the three as the Bishop for the capital's downtown area and a figure often seen on television programs. He is active in social and youth affairs and is close to the Bishop for Youth Affairs, Bishop Moussa, who had been an early favorite but was passed over. He was a one-time aide to the late Pope Shenouda III. A graduate of Ain Shams University Medical School, he has been a bishop since 1997. Born in 1954, he is the youngest of the three finalists.


Bishop Tawadros. The Auxiliary Bishop of Buheira in the Nile Delta; he is an Auxiliary to Bishop Pachomios, the locum tenens or "Acting Pope" during the transition. Tawadros, a pharmacist by training, he has been a bishop since 1997. Some consider him a key supporter of improved Muslim-Christian relations, but others claim he has not done enough to defend Copts whose churches have been attacked. He is 60 years old.

Father Rafael Ava Mina.  The oldest candidate at age 70, Ava Mina is an ordinary monk-priest, not a bishop. He was close to the late Pope Cyril VI (Kyrillos VI). A law shool graduate, he is a monk known for his piety and his writings, and is bsed at Mar Mina Monastery near Alexandria.

I expect to have more on the election later in the week.

A Weekend Nostalgia Picture That's Timely (if Nostalgia Can Be Timely)

I know this makes two Nasser pictures in one day, which might suggest I'm more of a Nasser admirer than is in fact the case. But I often post old pictures to start the weekend, and given the week's events and the growing tensions between Copts and Muslims in Egypt, this photo is a reminder that things were once better. 

While Muhammad Morsi did not attend Pope Tawadros II's installation or Christmas services, President Nasser and Pope Kyrillos VI (Pope 1959-1971) got on well, and according to most accounts genuinely liked each other. Here they are in 1965, preparing to lay the cornerstone of the new Coptic Cathedral in Abbasiyya: the same church that came under attack last Sunday.

Coptic Pope Shenouda's Health

There's an old Catholic saying that, at least according to the Vatican's official announcements, the Pope is always in excellent health right up to the moment he dies, meaning the Vatican isn't terribly forthcoming on his health. Another ancient patriarchate whose holder is traditionally referred to as Pope is similarly reticent. Coptic Pope Shenouda III recently returned to Egypt from the US, and you may note three things about the story: 1) he was in the US for a month for medical treatment; 2) it was his sixth trip to the US this year; and 3) there is no mention of what health problem he is being treated for.

Since Shenouda is 86, health issues are almost inevitable. Last year he broke his femur, and apparently hip problems were diagnosed while he was being treated at the Cleveland Clinic. (On that occasion, Husni Mubarak loaned him the Presidential jet.) He generally is treated at the Cleveland Clinic, which is known particularly for its heart expertise, but most reports suggest that Shenouda's problems are otherwise, perhaps including back problems and kidney problems. Some Egyptian reports in the past have said he is on dialysis. A bit of googling will turn up multiple postings on Coptic sites asking for prayers for the Pope, reports of Mubarak calling to reassure himself on the Pope's health (as a fellow octogenarian), and the like.

None of the reported ailments are particularly life threatening, but the frequency of his medical treatments mean that a papal succession is almost inevitable sometime in the next few years, perhaps even before a Presidential succession becomes inevitable.

Until the mid-20th century, Coptic popes were rather apolitical (for obvious reasons of protecting their community), and it was generally Coptic lay leaders who were the spokesmen for the Church to the government. That changed when Shenouda's predecessor, Pope Cyril (Kyrillos) VI, became a friend and admirer of Gamal Abdel Nasser. I've already posted about Shenouda's relations with Anwar Sadat (hostile to the point of being deposed) and Husni Mubarak (supportive to the point of seemingly endorsing Gamal Mubarak as a successor).

The point is that the Egyptian government has quite a bit invested in Shenouda's supportive stance despite many attacks by Islamists on Coptic churches, businesses, etc. Overseas Copts are much less enthusiastic about Shenouda, and there are divisions in the church leadership. The succession, when it comes, will be highly politicized, however much the Coptic faithful may deny it. It will be watched closely by the government and the overseas Copts. So Shenouda's health is not merely of interest to Copts, but to everyone who watches Egypt as Husni Mubarak ages.

Oh, and one further note: one thing I have in common with the Pope is he's a fellow editor. Before he was Pope he edited the Church's newspaper, Al-Keraza, and still regularly writes for it.