Events during the last week have served to raise hopes that the Abu-Fana monastery crisis is on its way to be resolved. Maged Hanna, a lawyer and consultant to Pope Shenouda III, said that Minya governor General Ahmed Diaa-Eddin has issued an order for the immediate definition of the borders of the land belonging to the monastery. Once this is done, Mr Hanna said, the governor has promised he will directly issue the permit to build the fencing wall the monastery had so long demanded around the land.
Father Pola Anwar, the deputy to Mallawi archbishop Anba Dimitrious—who is also abbot of the fourth century desert monastery of Abu-Fana which lies some 320km south of Cairo—told Watani that an official commission delegated by Minya governor to define the boundaries of the monastery grounds visited the monastery last Tuesday and began its task, finishing on Wednesday. Until the paper went to press, the monastery was waiting for the papers to be authenticated and officially approved, following which the building permit for the fencing wall should be issued. If all goes well, Fr Pola said, the erection of the wall should begin within the coming few days.
Once and for all
This would effectively put an end to the crisis which erupted between Abu-Fana and Minya governor in the wake of the barbaric attack waged against the monastery by ‘Arabs’—as the tribal desert dwellers in Egypt are called—on 31 May. The attack had been taken out of its criminal context and was portrayed by officials and the media as a land dispute between the monastery and the Arabs. Two weeks ago Pope Shenouda III, in an attempt to end the crisis and protect the monks and monastery, decided to give up 95 feddans of the monastery’s 600-feddan land in exchange for an official permit to build a fencing wall around the monastery grounds. Incidentally, last May’s attack was the 13th waged by the Arabs against the monastery during the last three years.
Minya governor, however, procrastinated on issuing the building permit and the matter appeared to come to a standstill until he decided to send the commission last week and get the matter again moving. Hopes are high that, this time, the crisis would be resolved once and for all.