Anba Pachomeus, Bishop of Beheira and Pentapolis, who is in hospital in London for medical treatment, has been reported to be in much better health.
Dr Mounir Azmy Rizkallah of al-Salam Hospital in Mohandisseen, Cairo, and who heads the team in charge of Anba Pachomeus, told Watani that the Bishop’s fever had subsided and his temperature was back to normal. This, Dr Rizkallah, said, largely improved Anba Pachomeus’s general condition. Medical investigations are still being conducted, however, into the illness the Bishop had suffered from.
More than a week ago, Anba Pachomeus was admitted to Al-Salam Hospital suffering from a high fever that had persisted for some two weeks earlier. The medical team treating him at al-Salam’s was able to bring the fever under control but decided he suffered form a bacterial infection and should go to London for further investigations and treatment. He left Cairo to London last Wednesday on a medically-equipped EgyptAir plane, accompanied by Anba Pimen, Bishop of Qous and Naqada, and Al-Salam doctors Mounir Rizkallah and Emad Shenouda.
Anba Pachomeus, who is the second most senior bishop in the Coptic Orthodox Church—the most senior bishop is Assiuts’ anba Maikhail who suffers from poor health—was acting patriarch from March 2012 in the wake of the death of Pope Shenouda III and until Pope Tawadros II was enthroned in November 2012. He led the Church during that tumultuous period in the wake of the Arab Spring uprising in 2011 and the rise of the Islamists, and supervised the election and enthronement of the new pope. His exemplary wisdom, strength, love, and courage earned him the love and respect of not only the Coptic congregation but also of Egyptians in their entirety.
Pope Tawadros visited Anba Pachomeus, who is his spiritual father and mentor, at al-Salam Hospital more than once and prayed for him. Beheira parish has observing a three-day fasting and prayer period for their bishop.
Watani International
29 August 2014