WATANI International
7 September 2011
The
On 2 September, the village Muslims surrounded the more than 100-year-old village
A conciliation session between the Church officials and the village Muslim elders was quickly hosted by the security officials. After long discussions, the Church decided to opt for a peaceful solution and acquiesced to doing away with the spire and the cross.
On Tuesday 6 September, extremist Muslims again crowded around the church, this time demanding that the domes be pulled down. The church building is an old design which includes six domes; Father Salib of Mar-Girgis’s told Watani, and pulling them down would bring down the entire building. The restoration licence, he said, included the domes, spire, and cross. Anba Hedra, Bishop of Aswan, said the church cannot renounce any more of its rights; it had offered an olive branch, he said, but the result was even more aggression.
On Wednesday morning the village Muslims closed all the ways leading to and from the village, and forbade the Copts from leaving the village to tend to their fields or do any work outside. They surrounded the Copts’ houses and threatened that, unless the Copts demolish the domes, the entire church building would be pulled down on Friday after the noon prayers. The village Muslims began contacting the Muslims in neighbouring villages and mobilising for a Friday offensive against the Mar Girgis church in Merinab.
The Church and the Merinab Copts have demanded protection from Military Council and security authorities, especially after the village Muslims were seen roaming the streets carrying knives, hammers, and various tools that may be used to attack the building. The security forces in the village have surrounded the church but, according to the village Copts, their numbers are too few to fend off a large-scale aggression.