The Coptic Orthodox Church declares it is still committed to Pope Shenouda III’s policy
Stories recently circulated in the Egyptian media about Copts flocking in droves to visit
The Coptic Orthodox Church declares it is still committed to Pope Shenouda III’s policy
Stories recently circulated in the Egyptian media about Copts flocking in droves to visit Jerusalem for pilgrimage during the Easter week have begged the question of whether the Coptic Orthodox Church was reneging on Pope Shenouda III’s orders against visiting Jerusalem for pilgrimage.
Figures indicated that some 20,000 Copts had booked flights or coach rides to Jerusalem during the last week. Travel agencies offered reasonably-priced promotions to visit the Holy Land during the Easter week; some Copts took it as the perfect opportunity to visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and all the other sacred places. It was rumoured that Pope Shenouda’s ban on pilgrimage to the Holy Land had been lifted following his decease on 17 March.
Church’s position
In an official announcement, acting Patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church Anba Pachomeus declared that all the decisions taken by the late Pope Shenouda III are still in effect. The Holy Synod, the Melli (Community) Council, and the Coptic Endowments Authority, the announcement read, have unanimously decided to maintain all the decisions taken by Pope Shenouda III during his papacy without any alterations, most important of which is the decision to ban pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
Anba Pachomeus stressed the Church’s national role in supporting the Palestinian cause and in committing to the principle engrained by Pope Shenouda III to visit the Holy Land only hand in hand with “our fellow Muslims”.
Anba Pachomeus insisted that the Church did not grant permits to any Copt for pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He stressed that those who recently travelled to the Holy Land acted on personal initiative and that the Church is neither responsible for nor backs their decisions. He maintained that the Church’s official stance regarding this issue remains unchanged.
When asked about whether the Copts who went to the Holy will be penalised for violating the late Pope’s ban, Anba Pachomeus commented that this will be up to the next patriarch after he is seated next September.
In the Diaspora
Simultaneously, the Defending Copts and Middle East Christians Bureau headed by Dr Awad Shafiq in Geneva and the Sweden Copts Organisation headed by Abdalla Shetwi, endorsed the decision to honour all the decisions taken by Pope Shenouda.
Dr Shafiq stressed that the decisions made by the Coptic Orthodox Church, whether during Pope Shenouda’s papacy or after his death are pure patriotic decisions that should not be abolished with the pope’s departure. Their legal impact, he explained, cannot be annulled before Palestine is recognised as an independent State.
Both Shafiq and Shetwi insisted that the Coptic Orthodox Church in the Diaspora, which is part and parcel of the mother Church in Egypt, did not grant any permit to Coptic members of the congregation for pilgrimage to the Holy Land, stressing the Coptic Diaspora’s patriotic stance vis-à-vis the Palestinian cause.
Hand-in-hand with Muslims
Back in the 1970s, in the wake of the 1973 War when Egypt was in the process of making peace with Israel, the then president Anwar al-Sadat asked Pope Shenouda III to encourage Copts to resume pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Such pilgrimages had been halted after the 1967 Six-Day War which resulted in Israel occupying Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Sinai. But the Pope had insisted that it was not the role of the Copts to spearhead a ‘naturalisation’ process with Israel that had no popular backing from Muslim Egyptians. He thus issued an edict banning Copts from pilgrimage to the Holy Land as long as Jerusalem remained under Israeli occupation. “I will only travel to the Holy hand in hand with my Muslim fellows,” the Pope had said. Since then, the Coptic Orthodox congregation had abided by the Pope’s decision, notwithstanding a few who had gone on their own without permission from the Church.
Far-sighted Pope
According to Coptic intellectual Mounir Bishay, the Pope explained his stance by saying that the discord between Egypt and the Arab World that followed the peace agreement with Israel would eventually be resolved, but he did not wish Egypt’s Copts to be tabbed as the traitors of the Arab nation.
In his Khareef al-Ghadab (The Autumn of the Wrath), the writer and journalist Mohamed Hassanein Heikal described Sadat’s reaction to the Pope’s stance. He wrote: “Sadat became mad with fury. The Israelis’ insistence was getting stronger by the day, and he appeared incapable of honouring the peace agreement. He feared his power might appear impotent before the Israelis.”
“Time proved the farsightedness and shrewdness of Pope Shenouda III,” Bishay says. “For generations to come, Copts would have been tabbed as traitors who had alone naturalised relations with Israel.”
The Pope’s patriotic stance was applauded by all Egyptians and Arabs, and earned him the title “Pope of the Arabs”. But many Copts were aggravated at their pope’s decision, since it deprived them of pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
History
When the Crusaders took over the Holy Land in 1099 they threw out the Greek Orthodox patriarch and shut the Eastern Churches’ away from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. They prevented the Copts from pilgrimage to the Holy Land, even banning them from coming any where near the city.
This went on until 1187 when Saladin reopened the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to all Christian sects, including the Copts. He even compensated the Coptic civilians who had accompanied him on his journey to Palestine by giving them back the Coptic property that had been seized from them by the Crusaders. Since then, the number of Copts living on the Holy Land steadily increased to the point that, in the 13th century, Pope Kyrillos III established a Coptic Orthodox diocese in Jerusalem.
Copts kept flocking to the Holy Land ever since, till the Six Day War in 1967. They never went back since then, even after the peace agreement with Israel, as Pope Shenouda III issued the edict banning Coptic pilgrimage to the Holy Land, until peace finally reigns.
WATANI International
15 April 2012