WATANI International
13 June 2010
Last Tuesday a press conference was held at the premises of the Coptic Orthodox cathedral in which Pope Shenouda III announced the position of the Church vis-à-vis the court ruling obliging the Church to issue remarriage permits for divorced couples. At present the Church issues such permits to the wronged party alone, the other party can only get this permit conditionally or, in certain cases, not at all.
The press conference was under the motto “Heaven and Earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.” Matt 24:35, and “God must be obeyed more than men”. Acts 5:29.
The Pope read the Holy Synod’s declaration: “The Holy Synod of the Coptic Orthodox Church announces that, even though the Church respects the judicial system, judicial rulings are not binding to the church where matters of faith are concerned. Marriage in the Church is one of the seven sacraments. Nothing on earth can force us to go against our conscience and abide by rules that contradict the Bible’s teachings.”
He referred to the Islamic principle which orders believers to rule non-believers according to their own religion, and to the Egyptian laws which stipulate that the Pope is no civil servant; meaning he cannot be bound in his job performance specifics by civil rulings.
The Pope regretted the ruling which, he said, added to the hardship of Copts and served to create a rift between the members of the Egyptian community.
The Pope also called upon Parliament to pass the unified law for personal status affairs for Christians, which had been submitted by all the Christian sects in Egypt to the Speaker of Parliament Sufi Abu-Taleb in 1980. The bill was again submitted to Parliament in 1998, but was never even discussed. “At the time, the topmost Islamic authority al-Azhar objected to the inclusion of a chapter regulating adoption—adoption is banned in Islam—so we deleted it.” But even so, the bill remained frozen.
“Copts are conscientious citizens who do their public and civil duties,” The Pope heatedly said, in reply to an allegation that the Church was acting as a State within a State. “Such an allegation is unacceptable; it serves no purpose but to incite anger against Copts at a time when Egypt should be busy with resolving all the grave regional problems around it instead of being consumed with infighting.”
