WATANI International
24 July 2011
The issue of closed churches remains one of the Coptic problems long been placed on hold. The pages of this dense folder lie in the office of the lawyer Ramses al-Naggar. In search for the truth, Watani paid a visit to Mr Naggar and then looked at the governorates of Assiut and Minya to seek the facts on the ground.
Watani began by asking Mr Naggar about the exact number of closed churches which the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has been asked to reopen.
“Demands for the reopening or restoration of some 58 Coptic Orthodox churches have been presented to the Military Council,” Mr Naggar said, “But this is not the final figure. Countless churches await restoration permits from local authorities.”
Most notorious cases
Mr Naggar told Watani about a Nag Hammadi church which has been closed since 1975, even though a SCAF order to open it was issued. “It is the Deputy to the Qena Governor, representing the local administrative authority, who actually stands in the way of reopening it,” he said. There are five other churches in Menoufiya which are all, structurally, in serious, life-threatening conditions, he said. “These churches are in dire need for restoration, but to date no permit has been issued regarding any of them.
“St Abanoub’s church in Qoussiya, Assiut, has been closed since 1995, and was among the churches required to be reopened and presented to SCAF in March 2011. To date nothing has been done about it. The Holy Virgin’s church, also in Qoussiya, founded according to a royal decree in 1909, had a presidential decree issued in 1990 that permitted an expansion to the church and the erection of an affiliated community service centre. Again, the local authorities did not allow the work to go ahead.
“There are many other churches which have suffered the same fate, such as Mar Girgis’s (St George’s) in Nag Hammadi, closed since 1985; Anba Bola’s and Anba Antonious’s in Deshna, closed now for more than 50 years; and many others.”
Modern-day jizya
Mr Naggar recalled that all the closed churches had been built in accordance with the law. “All these churches were built under the very nose of State officials,” he said. “It is no secret that the now defunct State Security Apparatus (SSA) used to impose huge amounts of money in so-called fees for new churches to permit their erection.” He explained that these amounts would go straight to the SSA, as a modern method of imposing jizya (a poll tax imposed on non-Muslims under Islamic rule) on Copts. These royalties were variable and were determined according to the financial means of each bishopric, Naggar added. “At the same time the SSA would cold-bloodedly oversee the closure of some churches—which had already paid the royalty—for what came to be termed by the media as ‘security reasons’.”
Watani asked how a decision by a local employee could overrule one issued by the SCAF?
The local employee’s decision is usually backed by Islamist fanaticism in the community, which overpowers the SCAF’s decision,” Mr Naggar replied. “This is why political, intellectual and religious awareness is needed from the grassroots levels and up through to the top.
“We should counter ignorance and fanaticism with knowledge, culture, and love,” he said. “Fanatical groups see themselves as delegated by God to do His will. They think they have the right to rule the world and to brand others as ‘apostates’. It is they who oppose the reopening, to say nothing of the building of churches.”
He says it is fanaticism that provokes Islamists to persecute the Church, even though community service centres are now affiliated to most churches. “These centres provide medical and educational services to all the area’s residents indiscriminately,” he said.
“It is the duty of Copts to peacefully oppose discrimination against them, basing on the rights of citizenship,” Mr Naggar said. “Freedom is not granted gratis, and rights do not rain from heaven. They are demanded, fought for, and seized.”
Statement of Assiut
The Coptic Orthodox Bishopric of Assiut presented a statement to the commander-general of the southern military region noting that, among 11 churches in Assiut which date back to the early centuries AD, three can no longer be opened for worship because of their threateningly dilapidated condition. The three churches are the Archangel Mikhail’s, the Martyr Sidarus’s, and St Joseph’s in the Christian cemetery.
The statement stressed that there are 11 churches in Assiut in urgent need of restoration or re-building, and eight in need of new fencing. Abu-Fam Monastery in the village of Musha Halfa, which dates back to the early Christian centuries, can no longer regularly accommodate Holy Mass services owing to the deterioration of its buildings and walls.
Thirteen districts in the parish of Assiut, the statement pointed out, need new churches since, despite the growing congregation, none have been built for some 50 years. In the district of Dairut, several churches have been closed since the 1990s for ‘security reasons’.
In Manfalout there are no churches closed, but the church’s community service building was closed in the early 1990s and is still closed despite the court order issued in 2009 in favour of the church to reopen the building.
Even though the villagers of Sadfa were elated at the official decision to reopen the 18th-century church of the Holy Virgin, which was closed back in 1995, severe disappointment set in when the priest finally opened the door, only to find the roof had fallen in. Fr Wissa said it was impossible to hold any services there. “We have to get a restoration license,” Fr Wissa said.
The same fate befell St George’s in al-Ghanayim, which had been closed for some 20 years.
…And in Minya
Anba Makarius, Bishop of Minya and Abu-Qurqas, said that some 50 legally-established churches in the parish were closed. Worse, he said, “some 140 villages in Minya and Abu-Qurqas are without a single church.” He wished the unified law for building places of worship would be passed, but noted that the bill included some unjust conditions which he hoped would be reconsidered.
Lawyer Ihab Ramzy of Samalout, Minya, said that, out of 35 requests for reopening closed churches, four churches in Minya, Samalout, Beni-Mazar and Malawi were being reopened. This, in his opinion, offered a glimpse of hope.
In several cases, Mr Ramzy said, churches were closed merely to appease the fanatics. The church of the Holy Virgin and St Dimiana in Malawi, for instance, was closed 25 years ago for ‘security reasons’ despite the fact that about 95 per cent of the local residents are Christian. “So where is the problem with reopening it?” wonders Mr Ramzy.
