Analysis
Featured
As noted in the second part of this essay series, the effendis were an educated social class in Egypt that, along with Egyptian elites, established Coptic Christian and Islamic charitable and educational associations, beginning in the 20th century. One of these associations was “Gam’iyyet al-’Īman al-Qibtiyya” (The Coptic Faith Society), which was founded in 1900. During the first half of the century, there were significant efforts by the Society to become an integral part of Egyptian society in general, and the Coptic society in particular, but ultimately it disappeared from the Coptic educational, social, charitable and theological scenes in the 1950s, in part due to the rise of other movements.
As I wrote in the first part to this essay series, the tram workers who established St. George parish, the second parish in the Shubra neighborhood of Cairo, were successful because of the legal rights that were guaranteed by the 1923 constitution in Egypt. In breaking from a classist environment that alienated them from other Christians, they used the law that allowed them to establish a charitable association to later found a new church. In this essay, I further analyze how class division affected the establishment of the Christian spaces in Egypt.
From one time to another, particularly in an Upper Egyptian city or village, we hear about an attack committed against a Christian charitable association because people intended to “turn it into a church or parish.” Although both spaces are separately defined in the Egyptian constitution, there is a strong social, political, and theological overlapping between both structures.
This past Palm Sunday two suicide bombers killed over 45 people at two churches in northern Egypt. One made his …
Jonathan Rashad visited two villages in Minya including the village of Nazlet Hana, which lost seven people in the attack, including two children and the village of Deir al-Garnos, which lost seven of its finest men who were all farmers and laborers that were set to do some work at the monastery.
Over the past three weeks, approximately 140 Coptic Christian families fled the city of Arish, the capital of North Sinai, according to the Egyptian Ministry of Social Solidarity’s office in Arish. The exodus comes after the families were threatened with death by Wilayat Sinai (the Islamic State’s “Sinai Province”) as well as the killing of seven Coptic individuals in armed attacks by the group this February.
Though successive Egyptian constitutions have stipulated that the freedom of belief is “absolute,” “guaranteed,” and “protected,” the actual policies of Egyptian governments prove that it is inherently violated and restricted, unless under some exceptions.
On August 8, 2006, the Egyptian National Council for Human Rights (NCHR) held a forum to discuss a proposal to abolish the religion field from national identity cards.
On Sunday, St. Peter and St. Paul Coptic Orthodox Church in Cairo’s Coptic cathedral complex was bombed, killing 29 and wounding four dozen others in an attack claimed by the Islamic State. The government charged with protecting Egypt’s Christians and bringing the perpetrators of this bombing to justice is the same government who looks down on Christians seeing and treating them as second class citizens.
In March of 2015, a Shi’a militia commander in Iraq became an internet celebrity. The man known as Abu Azrael, commander of the Kata’ib al-Imam Ali militant group, gained widespread media attention for his Rambo-like antics, posing in photos with axes and swords, and threatening Islamic State militants by saying he would cut them up “like shawarma.”
Egypt’s recent church building law was largely negotiated behind the scenes between the government and the three largest Christian denominations: the Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant churches. Despite concerns over insufficient public dialogue and loopholes which may hinder implementation, many Christians celebrate a formal legal process over the ad hoc nature of security intervention and presidential permits.
On August 30, Egypt’s House of Representatives fulfilled one of their constitutional mandates by passing a church construction law before ending their first session. The law—agreed to in closed-door meetings of Egypt’s Cabinet and representatives of Christian denominations—was rushed through the parliament with minimal debate, after an earlier draft was amended beyond the churches’ liking.
“Churches are owned by God, not by people.” Thus an Alexandria administrative court ruled on March 28, 2016, in a case between the Coptic Orthodox Church and a plaintiff who had bought land from the Greek Orthodox Patriarch.
Four years since the Maspero massacre, Egypt’s failure to prosecute crimes committed by the Armed Forces and crimes committed against religious minorities has perpetuated institutional injustice.
Long governed by separate laws on personal status issues—marriage, divorce, and other family law—Egypt’s Christians are awaiting the government’s latest move.