WATANI International
23 October 2011
Last Sunday’s issue of the Cairo weekly independent paper Sout al-Umma greeted readers with a front-page headline that read: “The area of Abu-Maqar Monastery is equal to that of Qatar, and that of Abu-Fana’s is four times of that of the Vatican”. The subtitle stated that the number of churches in Egypt is much more than those in large German cities.
An inner page included an article written by Iman Mahgoub which confirmed that the areas of churches and monasteries in Egypt are vast. The inflammatory language of the article appeared to be intended to instigate public opinion against the Coptic demand of a unified law for places of worship. The caretaker government headed by Essam Sharaf had promised, in the wake of the church burning and the attacks against Copts in Etfeeh last March and in Imbaba last May, that the law would be passed. Last week, however, it said it will ease the regulations for building churches but will not pass a unified law.
Ill-will or poor awareness
The obvious confusion between churches and monasteries reflects either ill-will on the part of the paper or, at best, poor awareness.
Father Basilius al-Maqari of Abu-Maqar (St Macarius) Monastery in Wadi Natroun in the Western Desert, said that the entire area of Abu-Maqar Monastery is three feddans (a feddan is 4,200 square metres of land), and the area occupied by the churches inside the monastery grounds is no more than a quarter of a feddan. When large numbers of monks first inhabited this area in the 4th century, it was known as al-barriya, literally the wilderness, and was only denoted as a deir (monastery) many centuries later.
“The article is full of erroneous information,” Fr Basilius told Watani. “What is the point of publishing such falsities now if not for inciting against Copts.”
Monasteries and convents have been in Egypt centuries before Islam, the historical researcher Gamal Mohammed Abu-Zeid told Watani. They have always been established in remote areas of unfriendly environment, usually shunned by ordinary people. Only monks or nuns live and worship there; no ordinary Copt may pray there except if on a sporadic visit. This, Dr Abu-Zeid says, means monasteries may not be counted, strictly speaking, as ‘churches’ open to the congregation.
Since a monastery includes living and communal quarters for a number of people, and also houses activities which constitute their source of livelihood—such as farmland, workshops, and the like—the area it occupies is usually large. “But then we must remember,” according to Dr Abu-Zeid, “that monasteries are mainly in remote, uninhabited places; so what’s the problem with ‘large areas’? As to the total area occupied by the churches proper inside a monastery, it is usually quite small.”
Dr Abu-Zeid agreed with Fr Basilius that publishing such an article reflects severe ignorance with the history of Egypt and the Copts.
