The defrocked monk Wael Saad Tawadros who was convicted of murdering Anba Epiphanius, Abbot of St Macarius Monastery in Wadi al-Natroun in Egypt’s Western Desert in July 2018 and was accordingly sentenced to death, was executed yesterday 9 May 2021.
Mr Tawadros was a monk at St Macarius’s under the name Ishaia al-Maqari but was defrocked in 2018 and ordered to revert to his lay name. In February 2019, Damanhour Criminal Court handed him and his accomplice, the monk Falta’ous al-Maqari, death sentences. The rulings were contested and, on 1 July 2020, the Court of Cassation, the highest court in Egypt, approved Mr Tawadros’s death sentence, but sentenced Fr Falta’ous to life imprisonment instead of death.
Last August, Anba Domadius, Bishop of 6 October City and Oussim, who is also head of the Holy Synod’s committee for care and service, visited Mr Tawadros in prison and gave him Holy Communion. Anba Domadius is in charge of extending care and service for prisoners.
Communion for defrocked monk sentenced to death for killing Abbot of St Macarius Monastery
For full report on the murder of Anba Epiphanius, and the sentencing of his killer:
Highest court: death sentence for killer of St Macarius’s Abbot, life sentence for accomplice
Watani International
10 May 2021