Pope Francis will be visiting Egypt on 28 – 29 April, according to a statement by
Egypt’s presidency. The visit comes upon invitation from President Abdel-Fattah
al-Sisi, Coptic Catholic Patriarch Ibrahim Ishaq and the Coptic Catholic bishops
during their ad limina visit at the Vatican on 6 February; Pope Tawadros II of the
Coptic Orthodox Church, and the Grand Imam of al-Azhar Sheikh Ahmed al-
Tayyeb.
The presidential statement said that: “Egypt welcomes its valued guest, and affirms
that it is looking forward to this visit as a message of peace, tolerance and dialogue
between all mankind from all religions.” The statement said that President Sisi,
who met the Pope during a 2014 visit to the Vatican, holds Pope Francis in high
regard and admires his moral and spiritual stature as well as his courageous stances
on a number of international issues.”
Pope Francis’s visit will coincide with the 70th anniversary of diplomatic
relationships between Egypt and the Vatican.
Interfaith dialogue
Pope Francis’s itinerary, which has not yet been published in detail, will include a
visit to al-Azhar, the world’s foremost authority on Sunni Islam, where he will
meet Shekh Dr al-Tayyeb.
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Dialogue between Al-Azhar and the Vatican was frozen six years ago when al-
Azhar cut contacts over what it said were insults to Islam. At the time, the then
Pope Benedict has condemned the bombing of Alexandria’s church of the Two
Saints; the bombing killed 23 Copts and injured scores as they left church after
Midnight service on New Year Eve 2011. Al-Azhar had accused the Vatican at the
time of alleging that religious minorities faced discrimination by Muslims in the
Middle East.
In May 2016, relations between the two religious bodies started to improve when
Pope Francis met Grand Imam al-Tayyeb in Rome. Since then relations have
continued to move forward, leading to an announcement by the Vatican on 20
October 2016 that sometime this spring the Holy See and al-Azhar Mosque and
adjunct University would officially resume dialogue. Pope Francis’ visit to Cairo
and to al-Azhar in April will likely mark the official resumption of this dialogue.
Pope Francis and Pope Tawadros: Brotherly love
Pope Francis will be paying a visit to the Coptic Catholic Church in Egypt, and to
the Coptic Orthodox Church where he will meet Pope Tawadros II. The Coptic
Orthodox Pope had visited Pope Francis in Rome in May 2013, the first such visit
in 40 years. The one that preceded it had taken place in 1973 when Pope Shenouda
III visited Pope Paul VI; this in turn was the first meeting between the two
Churches since the great rift that followed the Council of Chalcedon in 451.
Pope Francis had described the 2013 visit by Pope Tawadros as “an embrace of
peace and fraternity, after centuries of mistrust.”
“May this visit of love and brotherhood,” Pope Tawadros had said, “be the first of
a long series between our two great Churches.” He proposed that the date 10 May
would be celebrated each year as the Day of Brotherly Love between the two
Churches, “so that we may be always reminded that we have already solidly
embarked on the path of unity.”
https://en.wataninet.com/coptic-affairs- coptic-affairs/coptic-
affairs/pope-francis- meets-pope- tawadros/1889/
https://en.wataninet.com/coptic-affairs- coptic-affairs/coptic-
affairs/third-anniversary- brotherly-love/16348/
Watani International
19 March 2017