WATANI International
30 January 2011
In Maghagha, Upper Egypt …
There appears to be no light at the end of the tunnel for the congregation of Maghagha in Minya, Upper Egypt, some 190km south of Cairo. Since last March, Minya governor Ahmed Diaa’ Eddin has been adamantly refusing to grant the Bishopric of Maghagha licence to build a church in place of an old one he had required them to demolish as a precondition for him to license a new one.
Maghagha bishopric owned land adjacent to its parish church which was in dire need of repairs and which had become inadequate for the needs of the ever-growing congregation. When it applied for licence to build a new church, General Diaa’ Eddin said he could never allow two adjacent churches and did not trust the Copts to pull down the old one after the new church was built. He thus required that the old church should be pulled down as a precondition for the new licence. The Copts pulled down the old church and, for some 10 months now, were given no licence to build a new church in its place, and have been worshipping in a makeshift marquee instead.
No permit in sight
As though this were not enough, the torrential rains Egypt witnessed earlier this month made a mockery of the marquee. It broke down in tatters in some parts, and the earth underneath turned into a swamp of muddy puddles. Yet this was where the Copts of Maghagha had to hold Holy Mass to celebrate the Epiphany earlier this month. After Mass, some 3000 Copts demonstrated demanding their right to a church in place of the one they had been asked to pull down, and protesting the humiliation they were being forced to endure.
This was not the first time the Copts of Maghagha demonstrate demanding their rights. Last July, some 10,000 of them demonstrated at the site of the marquee, chanting slogans calling for the intervention of President Mubarak to resolve the problem, and denouncing the governor’s injustice and broken word. “We demand no more than our legitimate Constitutional rights,” Anba Aghathon said.
The congregation of Maghagha and Adawa had gathered some 170,000 signatures demanding their right to a new church instead of the one they had been required to pull down. Usama Mansour, the legal consultant to Anba Aghathon, told Watani that the bishopric had demolished the old church, leaving only the toilets and the bishop’s residence, after obtaining the governor’s permission for that. A part of the fencing wall was demolished according to prior agreement with the governor but some 90 days passed with no building permit in sight. The governor had not kept his word and the land was being violated by trespassers, so the bishopric rebuilt the demolished part of the wall. “Now,” Mr Mansour told Watani, “General Diaa’ Eddin is using this as a pretext to withhold the building permit for the new church, claiming the bishop’s residence, the toilets, and the wall should be pulled down before a permit is issued.
“It is unthinkable that there should be no toilets to serve the congregation, which still worships under the marquee. There was a prior agreement with the governor that the bishop’s residence—a 40-square-metre wide building which also serves as an administrative building, and which should also be pulled down because of its deteriorated condition—should remain until a new one is built. As to the wall, it should be used to fence the land against trespassers anyway.
“Now that the old church is no longer there,” Mr Mansour insisted, “what is the point in squabbling over petty details?
SOS
Also last July, General Diaa’ Eddin said the part of the wall which carries crosses should be removed since he required the land on which the old church stood to be handed over to Minya governorate, and it should carry no religious symbols. To this Anba Aghathon replied that it was impossible to hand over the land since it was an official endowment to the Coptic Church, which legally precludes its sale or exploitation by any other user.
“We intend to build a hospital on that land,” the bishop said. And as to the “no religious symbols” condition, how could that be when the land in its entirety is a Coptic endowment?
During the last few months Maghagha bishopric issued several announcements calling for an end to the dilemma, but no Egyptian official responded. In the wake of the recent collapse of the marquee, Anba Aghathon again issued an official SOS declaration asking for licence to build a new church in place of the one the bishopric had demolished in March 2010.
Roof falls in
In a predicament similar to that of Maghagha’s, and also in Minya, the roof of a mudbrick Evangelical church in the village of Nazlet al-Amoudein in Samalout collapsed last week for want of repairs. Applications for repair licence for the church which was built back in 1883 were repeatedly sidelined years on end, till the recent torrential rains brought the roof down.
Some 1500 members of the congregation held a peaceful sit-in in front of the church to protest the situation. The pastor Sameh Wasfy told Watani that, by divine protection, no-one was inside the building when the roof fell in. He said the congregation would hold an open sit-in until the officials grant them their constitutional right to a rebuilding permit.