During a recent pastoral visit to the Qena village of Fao, Anba Takla, Bishop of Deshna and its vicinity, donated a sum of money for the completion of the town’s newest mosque of al Qenawi which was in itself offered by the Muslim Qinawi family to the town of Talaleen. Anba Takla’s move was met with the warm approbation of the village’s Muslims and Copts who expressed that ‘this is the time-honoured true spirit of tolerance and brotherhood that should continue to reign among Muslims and Christians’.
Anba Takla himself commented that he grew up in the Cairo middle class district of Shubra with Muslim and Christian neighbours, in a spirit of camaraderie and friendship. He said he got used since his early days to share with Muslims their feasts and sorrows and for his Muslim fellows and their families to share with his family and Christian friends their joys and woes. That spirit, he said, taught generations upon generations that religion is a personal matter between one and God, but that the nation unites everyone.
On their part, the Qenawis thanked Anba Takla profusely for his generous spirit and purity of heart, wishing to entrench this spirit in the children and youth of the generations to come, in order for Egypt to remain a model for peaceful coexistence.
During his visit Anba Takla also visited the village mayor in his home as well as the town elders.