The Myth of Islamic Tolerance and Peaceful Coexistence - Egypt's Coptic Christians (5 of 7)

Egypts Coptic Christians: The Experience of the Middle Easts largest Christian community during a time of rising Islamization

July 18, 2008, 12:00 - 2:00 PM - Hudson Institute, Washington, D.C. Headquarters

Bishop Thomas and Nina Shea - The Center for Religious Freedom - recently held a luncheon discussion by Bishop Thomas of Upper Egypt.

His Grace, Bishop Thomas of the El-Qussia and Mair Diocese in Upper Egypt became a monk in 1983 and was ordained a priest in 1987. Bishop Thomas works tirelessly to strengthen religious freedom and human rights in the face of personal risks. He was the first recipient of the St. Stephen Prize, a human rights award given by The Norwegian Mission to the East, for his efforts to speak out against the oppression of religious communities. Bishop Thomas is active in building schools and developing educational programs in Egypt's Coptic Church. In 1999 he built the Anaphora Farm and Retreat Center in Wadi el-Natrun, where many of the monastic communities of the desert fathers lived 1500 years ago.

ooo OOO ooo

In Egypt the government does not officially recognize conversions from Islam to Christianity; also 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.

The government also requires permits for repairing churches or building new ones, which are often withheld. Foreign missionaries are allowed in the country only if they restrict their activities to social improvements and refrain from proselytizing.

The Coptic Pope Shenouda III was internally exiled in 1981 by President Anwar Sadat, who then chose five Coptic bishops and asked them to choose a new pope. They refused, and in 1985 President Hosni Mubarak restored Pope Shenouda III, who had been accused of fomenting interconfessional strife. Particularly in Upper Egypt, the rise in extremist Islamist groups such as the Gama'at Islamiya during the 1980s was accompanied by attacks on Copts and on Coptic churches;

these have since declined with the decline of those organizations, but still continue. The police have been accused of siding with the attackers in some of these cases. And in Southern Egypt, there were problems in which involves terrorists going into monastaries, harrassing, capturing, and torturing monks (such as the 2008 attacks on the monks of the Monastery of Saint Fana).

Source: Wikipedia

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[MrDavidato]

jesus will be with yo for your peacefully style

[Expeldarkness]

@TheTrueIslamImam As you give love, you will have love.

[waqasahmedamin]

From what he's saying he is complaining about the fundamentalists, not specifically against Islam... 1001 Phoenix you Muslim Hater.. honestly your wasting your time mate

[waqasahmedamin]

@kastitabh He complains about the Egyptian Regime and doesn't want to acknowledge that the US are the backers of the Regime. Its all hypocracy- he's whipping up anti-Muslim hysteria. He's defintely got an agenda!

[kastitabh]

This person forgets that the Copts continued to exist in a Muslim country for 15 CENTURIES, if these Muslims are so intolerant as he claims how he explains it existeil does not exist today, these people are dangerous Copts themselves by creating an unhealthy climate in a society already quite frustrated by poverty and poor governance. Collector of U.S. subsidies.

[ManRic2]

"we will be always there and no one will can seas Copt to end" , "Copt are very generous and they give the poor" that does not look like people live in grieve or whatsoever, who is the richest man in Egypt? who is Botros Ghali the Ex. Secretary General of the UN? those look like a people in danger?

[MrIbnbilal]

coptics is an african heritage.