Talk in the constituent assembly that is currently writing Egypt’s new constitution about placing the funds of the Church under State supervision has aroused the anger of Copts
Talk in the constituent assembly that is currently writing Egypt’s new constitution about placing the funds of the Church under State supervision has aroused the anger of Copts.
The acting patriarch Anba Pachomeus said that the Church’s money comes from the donations and tithes of the Copts and are used to fund the spiritual, health, or social services provided by the Church to the congregation. The State, he said, does not spend a penny on the Church; even though it funds mosques and Islamic institutions out of taxpayer—Muslim and Christian—money.
“We will not accept any supervision by the State over the donations or projects of the Coptic Orthodox Church,” Anba Pachomeus said. “The mere fact that such a proposal is made indicates unabashed persecution against the Copts.”
The representative of the Church in the constituent assembly, Judge Edward Ghaleb said that the proposal that the constitution should stipulate that the Church’s funds should be supervised by the State, as are the funds of the armed forces, involves erroneous logic. The armed forces, he said, are funded by the State but the Church is not.
The Coptic activist priest Father Matthias Nasr said that such a proposal at this time is designed to foster antagonism against the Copts by taking the matter out of its proper context. Just as the false rumour circulated by Islamists months ago, he said, that the Copts alone own some 40 per cent of Egypt’s wealth, the proposal to supervise Church money is but an attempt to give an impression that Copts posses wide, unaccounted-for wealth.
“Instead of chasing the Church’s money, none of which comes from the state or is spent on any political activity, why doesn’t the State look at the funding of the Muslim Brotherhood, a group that has no legal standing and shadowy funding used to achieve political ends?”
Watani International
28 August 2012