Pope Francis Visits Egypt
Sr Irini Chenouda, OLA shares some thoughts on Pope Francis' visit to her native Egypt.
Pope Francis stands next to Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, on his arrival in Cairo Egypt. Image courtesy of www.aljazeera.com.
Today Pope Francis began his visit to Egypt: a land steeped in history, rich in culture and archaeological treasures and most of all a country that welcomed the holy Family, Mary, Joseph and the child Jesus when their life was endangered in their homeland in Nazareth.
Egypt has to cope with a variety of religious beliefs which complicates the daily governance of the country and often gives rise to street violence and persecution of the Christian minority. And whenever there are major tensions between the East and the West the Christians invariably pay the price…
Egypt is a Muslim State which accommodates a minority Egyptian Church which is a real mosaic of churches. All Rites are represented in Egypt: the seven Catholic Rites: Coptic, Greek, Chaldean, Syria, Maronite, Armenian, Latin and the 5 Orthodox. Many Coptic Christians left Egypt immediately before and in the aftermath of the Canal war in 1956.
Today there are 7 dioceses, and the Catholic Coptic faithful are approximately 210,000, the majority are based in Upper Egypt, i.e. southern Egypt.
The Sisters of Our Lady of Apostles work in schools, Health Centres, Pastoral and social Centres in Cairo, Alexandria, Assault, Guirga, and Tanta. They work alongside their Muslim sisters and brothers, their schools would include Muslim and Christian students, there is a high degree of respect and understanding of each other’s religious beliefs and the excellent quality of service is appreciated by all parties.
A Sister of the OLA community in Zeitoun pictured at a celebration day for students of the OLA schools in Zeitoun. Image courtesy of the Notre Dame des Apotres Zeitoun Facebook page.
The Church supports the faith of the Christian community, animating the masses, catechesis, bible studies, Sunday school, apostolic activities for workers, adult education and spiritual activities for families and especially tries to find work for the youth. It is believed that some young people convert to Islam every year for economic reasons. At times there is a ray of hope, words like democracy, separation of the State and the Religious, citizenship, equality which were forbidden before are now in use. Yet the persecution of the Christians continues in subtle ways in the form of discrimination, denied access to senior posts in public service, social marginalisation and exclusion from sports or the media.
We know the the path to true peace can be reached through interfaith dialogue. In a true act of genuine solidarity, Christians supported their Muslim brothers and sisters in Tahrir Square in 2011 in overthrowing the Muslim Brotherhood. However, they paid a high price for their collaboration in the massacres and persecutions that followed in 2014. Over eighty churches and social buildings were ransacked and burned by Islamic fundamentalists, hundreds of homes and business were burned down. These fundamentalists are a small minority and do not represent the majority of Muslims in Egypt who are peace loving.
More worrying today is a basic intensity of violence that has moved into the country, sporadic attacks on police stations and armed forces especially in and around Sinai and more recently we witnessed the horrific attacks on two Cristian Churches in Tanta and Alexandria during the Holy Week Ceremonies, a most sacred time for the Christian Community.
Our prayers will accompany Pope Francis during this visit to Egypt as he brings his message of Peace, Tolerance, and Good Will to our beautiful country.
- Sr Irini Chenouda, OLA.
