Unprecedented: Egyptian Government Suppresses Christian Doctrine
It is not enough that the Egyptian government facilitates persecution of the Copts, Egypt’s indigenous Christian minority. Now the government is interfering directly with the church’s autonomy concerning doctrine. According to the Assyrian International News Agency:
The head of the Coptic Church in Egypt has rejected a court ruling that orders the church to allow divorced Copts to remarry in the church. In a press conference held on Tuesday June 8, Pope Shenouda [III], reading from the statement issued by the Holy Synod’s 91 Bishops, including himself, said: “The Coptic Church respects the law, but does not accept rulings which are against the Bible and against its religious freedom which is guaranteed by the Constitution.” He went on to say “the recent ruling is not acceptable to our conscience, and we cannot implement it.” He also said that marriage is a holy sacrament of a purely religious nature and not merely an “administrative act.”
Though little reported in the West, this issue is rapidly boiling over. There is even talk that, if he does not submit to the court’s ruling, the pope will (once again) be imprisoned. What is behind such unprecedented governmental interference with the Coptic Church’s autonomy?
Reading Egypt’s national newspaper, Al Ahram, one gets the impression that, by trying to make divorce and remarriage easier for Copts, the Egyptian government is attempting to “liberalize” Coptic society — only to be challenged by an antiquated pope not open to “reform.” It quotes one Copt saying that the “pope’s limiting divorce and remarriage to cases of adultery is unfair. It is against human nature.” Even the manager of the Centre for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance claims that his position “exposes Pope Shenouda’s desire to impose his will over the Christian community” (a curious statement, considering that some 10,000 Copts recently demonstrated in support of the pope, and that the Catholic and Orthodox churches — which guide some 1.5 billion Christians — hold similar views on divorce and remarriage).
At any rate, lest the reader truly think that the Egyptian government is becoming more “liberal,” there are a few important facts to remember:
First, according to the Second Article of the Egyptian Constitution, Sharia law — one of, if not the most draconian law codes to survive the Medieval period — is “the principal source of legislation.” This means that any number of measures contrary to basic human rights are either explicitly or implicitly supported by the Egyptian government, including polygamy, the obstruction of churches, and institutionalized discrimination against non-Muslims and females in general. Put differently, Sharia law can be liberal — but only to male Muslims, who (speaking of marriage and divorce) can have up to four wives, and divorce them by simply uttering “I divorce you” thrice (even via “text messaging”).
Groups like the Presbyterians and Episcopalians, who are so sensitive about the moral failings of Jews, will be absolutely outraged when they hear of this and will be rising as one to the defense of their co-religionists. I can already see the demonstrations in Washington outside the Egyptian embassy.
They will care little because they are blinded by hate. If they can ignore this they can ignore anything-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDqWGtykYNE&feature=player_embedded
My compliments for your excellent display of satire.
Presbyterians and Episcopalians are morally squishy Christian denominations. They would be much more likely to side against the Copts because the Copts are way too closely related to the *gasp* Catholics and Orthodox Christians.
We should not be wasting billions of taxpayer dollars in foreign aid to such disgusting governments.
Buy “billions”, do you mean *2* billions? That’s how much we give Egypt in foreign aid every year. It is a token gesture to keep them nominally democratic and generally happy with the US and in favor of US interests in the Middle East.
Cutting that would do essentially nothing for the taxpayers. Its benefits far exceed its meager costs to us.
Ultimately, this is Egypt’s problem, and a small potatoes one at that. It’s no fun to read about, and it’s great for vague moral outrage, but from a practical foreign policy standpoint, this is a non-issue.
As long as they keep the oppression and murder below a particular threshold, you’re hunky dory with it?
“Groups like the Presbyterians and Episcopalians, who are so sensitive about the moral failings of Jews, will be absolutely outraged when they hear of this and will be rising as one to the defense of their coreligionists.”
You REALLY think so? The Anglicans and Episcopalians historically viewed the Coptic Churches as “quaint and superstitious people, a step above ‘nature’ worship. Even though the Christian Church as we know it today was founded in Egypt in the First Century, and based on the Apostleship of St. Matthew
The word “Copt” means Egyptian, and has since come to be Christian Egyptians; 80% of whom are considered Orthodox and in full communion with the Eastern Orthodox Churches, and 18% are Coptic Rite Catholics, and the remaining 2% belong to various Protestant denominations. The Church in Egypt has survived 1400 years of Islamic persecution, we in the west ought to be studying their methods of survival under Sharia.
I suspect Mr. Bensky was being sarcastic.
As a Christian I don’t want to “survive” under Shari’a. That would make me a dhimmi. I refuse to submit to a monstrous religion like Islam. We should look to Jefferson and the founding fathers on how to fight Shari’a. We didn’t submit the the Barbary Pirates, why should be submit the Muslims in our midst.
There’s more to this story that the article is saying. In Egypt, divorce and remarriage is not granted by the state until first granted by the religious authority (Muslim or Christian). If your Christian sect doesn’t allow divorce, you’re up the creek, because you can’t get divorce papers from the state.
The solution is to have two separate marriage systems, one secular and one religious, like you have here.
Of course, if you separate religion from state, there is no problem, and the Egyptian government would not be butting in.
I think the egyptians would find that a tad to western to have two systems. Like in Switzerland, Mexico, Monaco, etc. Where a “religious” marriage isn’t recognized by the state, and couples must have a civil marriage as well to be “legally” married.
Egypt is the most pathetic muslim country, followed by:
Yemen
Syria
Followed close behind by all other majority muslim countries.
What about Arabia & Pakistan? The only people going into those places from outside their borders are there for a pay cheque, and those who want to kill OBL.
As long as geography dictates the old Arab story of me versus my brother, my brothers and I versus another family in the clan, my
clan versus another clan in the tribe, my tribe versus another tribe, and all Araby versus the rest of the world; Islam is as necessary as a down filled winter coat in Riyadh on the hottest day of the year.
The Tao, you are mistaken. The Coptic Church allows divorce. It simply does not allow re-marriage unless the reason for the divorce was an acceptable one, such as adultery.
If a Copt divorces and wants to remarry, he may have to join a different denomination, or leave the church entirely. This is purely voluntary, if you want to be a Copt you have to follow its rules. Nothing strange about that.
Agreed. But the problem in Egypt is that if the church/mosque won’t recognize a certain marital status, then the state won’t either. The government shouldn’t be basing secular marital law on church law.
“The government shouldn’t be basing secular marital law on church law.”
Ah, but it isn’t; it is basing it on Sharia. It may grant some rights to the Church, but as in this case, it reserves the right to impose Sharia-based standards (which ironically, most readers here would agree with in this particular case) on it.
MerkTheGreat:
when you are right you are right..everyone of them are pathetic
excluding Turkey and Malaysia
turkey is ok just because they murdered a couple million Armenians is no big deal plus all the turks i have met are scum but don’t worry they are pals.not.malasia was really swell and just because a group muzzies tried to rob me is no big deal,right!i showed them the instrument in .45 and they ran away.
These Copts are an interesting bunch of people, the descendants of the Pharaonic age. Nice to see that, not only do they still exist, but they are fighting the Muhammadans back, at least as much as they can. Obama should really consider their situation.
Oh wait, they’re Christians! Never mind….
Hallo Raymond
Such items are highly welcomed. These stupid egyptians, before mixing in the traditions of the first christian church in the world, should try to rub some of the myseries of its 80 millions poor people, still dwelling in the cemiteries. Unfortunately, Egypt image to the world are the old mainly the ancient civilisation of this coptic land and not its millenary old schari’a law which,force over one billion moslems to a killing immobilism.
God bless Pope Snehouda.
So the state is forcing Christians to accept a redefinition of marriage. Nothing like that could happen here. Those Moslems, picking on the traditional Chriatian marriage. Disgraceful. No group could redefine traditional marriage here. Oh, wait. Too bad. The State controls marriage and may define it how it pleases in Egypt as well as California.
That’s a litle unfair. I’m no fan of same-sex marriage but no American state or Canadian province has required the Catholic or any other Christian church to marry two people of the same sex — not yet anyway. But it’s probably only a matter of time before “civil rights” crazies challenge the right of churches to determine who is entitled to their sacraments and rites. So on second thought, maybe you’re just being a little premature rtaher than unfair in your criticism.
This what happens in Egypt is not the real Isalm ,it is illegal to force any one for such personal issues ,the holy Qoran says:Call for God s path by wisdom and fair example and and argue the other by the better.But the US Islam i.e Egypt ,Saudi Arabia are terrible, they do that and persecute their people likely to please their master American ,In Saudi Arabia ,the first ally ,it is not allowed to bring the bible inside the country ,nor women are allowed to drive or take part in public life.
In Egypt ,no doubt that there is descrimination against the Gopts and still Egypt is an ally and moderate country.
Let us look at Syria ,there is freedom of religion ,no minorities or Christians are persecuted ,they are ordinary citizens and enjoy their rights,women enjoy freedom and are active in public life ,but because Syria has part of its land occupied by Israel and claims its land to be liberated,the US says it supports terrorism and Saudi Arabia and Egypt who produced the Qaeda are moderate(no freedom of expression ,no freedom of religion, no freedom of women ,raise terrorists and export them to Iraq and other countries, consider any other confession infedel,…and they are moderates!!).
Iran as if a taboo to talk about it .In Iran the Christians enjoy their religious freedom as well as the Jewish minority and all the anger of the west is with Iran .
In Iraq the Christian minority suffered attacks and persecution soon after the US forces occupied it .The Christians in Iraq fled the hell of terror caused by the stupid occupation and sought refuge to Syria which is labelled as sponser for terrorism ,they feel secure and safe in Syria and threated and dangered under 150,000 US soldiers who are supposed to fight terrorism and not cause it.
My dear it is politics and not Islam ,as long as the US follows the strategy of supporting the Salafi Wahhabi Qaedi regim in Saudi Arabia and fights the Secular Moslems in Syria there will be more terrorism because the factory in Saudi Arabia is still producing more and more thanks to the support of the US.
Cairo knows it can get away with this barbarism because of the following reasons:
1 – The setting of a hierarchy of principles is simply unacceptable.
2 – Cairo knows that it is on the receiving end of bigotry because it is held to a lower standard, and Cairo does not view this as a bad thing.
As long as the Sons of Allah persist that they are correct, and the rest of the world is wrong, anything that resembles the rest of the world is to be avoided. So, given that more time and effort has been spent by the rest of the world to build society, this is deemed to be unacceptable by the Sons of Allah. But, they don’t mind enjoying the benefits of those they demonize.
God bless you Pope Shounoda .
Yea “Ummm” is totally cool with religious persecution, mass oppression and murder. For a foreign relations realist like this one it doesn’t matter how ugly the world is as long as the United States gets cheap oil.
I don’t mean to sound like a leftist but give me a break.
“Persecute all the Christians you want just don’t declare jihad on us!!?”
UMMMM YOU’RE A COWARD!