Category Archives: Coptic persecution

by Dymphna

This post unabashedly copied from Gates Of Vienna.

Voice of the Copts has announced a demonstration to be held in front of the White House on the occasion of Egyptian President Mubarak’s visit to the U.S. on August 18th – next Tuesday.

They are joined in this effort to hold a peaceful rally by the National American Coptic Assembly and the American Coptic Union.

Voice of the Copts describes their mission:

Our goal is to report news of discrimination and oppression of religious minorities in every corner of our planet. A special attention will be given to those taking place in countries ruled by the Arabs, as well as providing an in-depth explanation of their mentality, behaviour and their way of living.

Since we are Copts, events of interest to the Copts concerning issues in their homeland, Egypt, will be covered, Our website would be an open window on the Coptic culture, as well as a comprehensive source of information on the Copts’ suffering in their own land.

The Copts are an ancient people. In fact, the name in Arabic means “Egyptian”, or at least it did. The fact that they survive at all after a millennium of slaughter and persecution is testimony to the strength and determination of this people. Despite the ongoing, endless inequity they experience in their native land, they have managed to maintain a precarious existence in the face of hatred and mindless attacks.

Consider the Copts a safety valve the Arab usurpers use to keep their own people in line. The latter have to queue up for necessities like bread, even though their government receives large subsidies from the West. When government is as corrupt as it is in Egypt, people suffer hardships. Thus, the Copts are a handy distraction to keep the attention of the larger population focused on something besides Mubarak’s feckless governance.

Many people are not aware of the flowering of Christianity very early on in Egypt. In the second century, it had begun to spread through the region. The apostle Mark is credited with mission work in Alexandria, and it wasn’t long before Anthony (born c. 270 A.D.), founded the cenobitic monasticism movement in Egypt. Pachomius learned from Anthony, though he was more interested in an eremitic, communal monasticism. Centuries before Benedict founded monasteries in the West, Christian monastic communities were flourishing all over North Africa and the Middle East.

After the invasions of the Muslims and the beginnings of serious slaughter, any discernible level of North African Christianity disappeared. But this didn’t happen in Egypt. North African Christians (Bishop Augustine of Hippo was one) belonged to the urban areas and to the educated elite, who were Romanized. None of those Christian leaders envisioned their theology or ecclesiology as something that belonged to the rural areas. To the extent that they “evangelized” the message was directed to urban populations.

Coptic Christianity, in contrast, went all the way to the bone. There were churches in even the smallest villages and the numerous monasteries were centers of learning, not just of Greek scripture, but also of an indigenous Coptic language collection of scripture, sermons, and hermeneutic theses. These codices and scrolls were revered by those charged with their keeping. Eventually, the murdering hordes would attack and destroy the great majority of these works, but it would take many centuries to penetrate from the cities into the hinterlands of Egypt.

The invaders found the native Copts useful. They were intelligent and literate so the Copts established a precarious niche as the clerical staff for their unschooled rulers. This didn’t mean the persecutions ceased. Rather, it guaranteed that the Copts would be harassed, intimidated, killed or kidnapped here and there when the occasion presented itself, but there would be no outright Final Solution. The Copts were always too useful to dispose of entirely.

[Here are the other sections of this story: Part Two and Part Three]

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