Egypt: Reflections, challenges and hopes

In April, our Head of Press and Information John Pontifex travelled with a small Aid to the Church in Need team to Egypt on a fact-finding trip. It was his second attempt to visit the faithful in Egypt, after the original travel plans were put on ice as the 25th January Revolution gathered pace. In this series of blogs, John will be posting his diary entries from the trip, giving an eye-witness glimpse into life for Egypt's 10 million Christians - more than any other country in the Middle East.

Sunday, 17th April 2011

I am writing this on the plane somewhere between Cairo and London. In fact, looking at the satellite images of our progress on screen, we’re just crossing the English Channel. My mind is buzzing with the experiences of this past 10 days. It’s difficult to take it all in.

As it happened, my driver who took me from the clergy house in Maadi, Cairo, nearly dropped me at the wrong terminal until I pointed out his error to him. Drama, right to the last minute!

What am I to make of the trip? We certainly covered a huge amount of ground, going to every Catholic diocese. In fact, after the first phase, spent in Cairo, we visited a diocese a day. In the aftermath of the Revolution, it feels like Egypt has rolled the dice – gambling on its future – but the dice is still rolling and nobody knows what it’s going to land on.

If it’s a six, democracy and respect for minorities are guaranteed. If it’s a one, however, historians will look back and show how Islamists – the Muslim Brothers, or the Salafists – were able to hijack the Revolution and introduce a theocracy every bit as punitive as Iran or Saudi Arabia.

A Coptic Cross at sunset

For Aid to the Church in Need, it’s clear. The charity must respond to Patriarch Cardinal Antonios Naguib’s call to help the Church respond to the opportunities opened up by change. In a time of turmoil, building up the faith is more important than ever: building parish centres, catechetical and Christian education work, Mass stipends for poor and persecuted priests, helping the monastery outside Alexandria, formation of priests, support for Sisters providing crucial pastoral and humanitarian help – the list goes on.

And that extraordinary line from the Patriarch comes back to haunt me, his reference to the charity’s commitment to prayer, emphasised in all our correspondence. What he said about this sums everything up for me.

He said: “I like the fact that in your letters about project support, you always ask us to pray for the benefactors. You remind us that this is at the centre of who we are to each other.”

Find out how you can help Christians in Egypt

Building the Church in Egypt in secret

In April, our Head of Press and Information John Pontifex travelled with a small Aid to the Church in Need team to Egypt on a fact-finding trip. It was his second attempt to visit the faithful in Egypt, after the original travel plans were put on ice as the 25th January Revolution gathered pace. In this series of blogs, John will be posting his diary entries from the trip, giving an eye-witness glimpse into life for Egypt's 10 million Christians - more than any other country in the Middle East.

Saturday 16th April 2011

I can't tell you where I have been or who I have been with.

It’s just one of those things. If I said, the people concerned will be in trouble. But that doesn’t stop me from telling a good story without any of the crucial information being left out.

It’s the story of how a chapel was created under the noses of the security personnel stationed there precisely to prevent the work from going ahead. How it happened is like this: the clergy wanted to turn one of the rooms in a church-owned building into a chapel. After the state police had received a tip-off about the plan, the Church had to think again.

Then somebody had a brainwave: the sister of a priest occupied the neighbouring building. She received the building materials – timber for the pews, concrete for the chapel pillars, stone for the altar etc – and bit by bit they were passed across through a hole in the roof. The chapel was duly built with the state police outside oblivious to what was going on.

A church in Egypt

Truth to tell, church building is really difficult in Egypt. Under the old regime, a church could only be built with the personal permission of President Mubarak himself. There are strict limits on the number of churches it is permissible to build. The state police and local government authorities have a track record of nipping church-building plans in the bud, claiming widespread local opposition.

Even if churches do get built, so often within months of them going up, a mosque – huge by comparison – is suddenly erected. And yet, the bishops feel they must build because vast new cities are being built to cater for a fast-expanding population where up to 1.5 million babies are born every year. The average age is about 26.

We visited some of these new cities and they are truly enormous – housing estates spreading into the desert as far as the eye can see. One bishop told us how in one of the cities the authorities repeatedly blocked his plans for a church. He reiterated the frustration he experienced, his repeated representations to the planning authorities.

“We must build,” he said, “otherwise our faithful will start abandoning the Church. We cannot accept no for an answer. It’s simply not fair. We must build,” and then he added in a whisper “and we are building…”

Find out how you can help Christians in Egypt

ipadio: Sister Elizabeth - a hero of the Church

"We trust in God. We pray: 'Jesus, take care of us.'"

In April, our Head of Press and Information John Pontifex travelled with a small Aid to the Church in Need team to Egypt on a fact-finding trip. It was his second attempt to visit the faithful in Egypt, after the original travel plans were put on ice as the 25th January Revolution gathered pace. In this series of blogs, John will be posting his diary entries from the trip, giving an eye-witness glimpse into life for Egypt's 10 million Christians - more than any other country in the Middle East.

Thursday, 14th April 2011

Assiut, in Upper Egypt, is a University city. We arrived here today to find the Bishop – Kyrillos William – keen for us to meet the young people who attend the major institutions here. Walking through the streets, I suddenly realised that the bishop was quite able to walk around with his distinctive tall brimless hat with veil and his ivory-capped stick, without feeling at risk. Back in Sohag and Minya, the bishop had tended to keep a much lower profile.



Bishop Kyrillos William of Assiut, Egypt

This difference is down to Assiut having a much higher proportion of Christians – in fact it’s more 40 percent Christian, whereas Luxor and Sohag had been more like 20-25 percent. And this greater equality was reflected in a much more upbeat Catholic faithful.

Having visited a catechetical centre which is to be rebuilt thanks to funding from Aid to the Church in Need, Bishop Kyrillos took us on to a halls of residence. There I met a young woman named Lydia, aged 21.


Lydia, a young Christian woman from Assiut in Upper Egypt


Lydia is training to become a pharmacist. She explained that not covering her hair and her Christian names caused some consternation among prospective employers, but her attitude was far more resolute than what I had seen thus far.

She told me: “We are proud of our Christian identity and we don’t want to change. I love Egypt. It is my country. We trust in God. We pray: ‘Jesus, take care of us.’”

But nobody can doubt the pressures against the Church and the Coptic Catholic Church in particular. Bishop Kyrillos, a lively and erudite man explained the scandal of how the Coptic Orthodox insists on rebaptism of Copts Catholics marrying their faithful. We were told today that thousands of Catholics abandon their faith every year. Yes, many of them turn to Islam, in many cases for financial reasons – enhancing job opportunities etc. But there are also those who switch to Orthodoxy which holds sway in many areas.

For instance, the other evening, we went by night to a Catholic church under construction where work had stopped part-way to completion. We were told that the authorities had stepped in after complaints not from Islamists but from disgruntled local Orthodox. The truth is stranger than fiction.

Find out how you can help Christians in Egypt

ipadio: Meeting the faithful in Egypt



Expressions of Faith: In a village outside Sohag, Upper Egypt, Mass takes place in a church supported by Aid to the Church in Need



Bringing Christ's light to Luxor

In April, our Head of Press and Information John Pontifex travelled with a small Aid to the Church in Need team to Egypt on a fact-finding trip. It was his second attempt to visit the faithful in Egypt, after the original travel plans were put on ice as the 25th January Revolution gathered pace. In this series of blogs, John will be posting his diary entries from the trip, giving an eye-witness glimpse into life for Egypt's 10 million Christians - more than any other country in the Middle East.

Tuesday 12th April 2011

Our visit to Luxor was always going to be interesting but few of us could have expected it to be quite as we found it. We were particularly anxious to visit since Aid to the Church in Need staff had not been there for a number of years amid safety concerns. Despite the turmoil of the moment, we were given clearance to go.

Collected after the hour-long flight from Cairo, the first thing we noticed was a series of unmanned security check points. Introduced to the Bishop of Luxor, Joannes Zakaria, the first thing he told us was: “The situation is not very good. There is looting. People are carrying out many manifestations [protest marches]."

John Pontifex in front of ancient ruins at Luxor

Luxor is a beautiful city but tourists were still thin on the ground. Beautifully turned-out rickshaws with perfectly groomed horses stood idle behind the ancient remains in the city centre. There was an eerie quiet about the place.

Taking a late lunch, the bishop described the diocese: with 18,000 Catholics in a total population of four million, you realise the size of the diocese when you are told that it neighbours that of Khartoum, deep inside north Sudan.

Bishop Joannes said that in the last few years there were suspicious blazes on three church properties. One fire had broken out at a convent, another had gutted a parish church in a village called Hagazah and a third had badly damaged the bishop’s house overlooking the Nile.

But standing on the top of the rebuilt Bishop’s House, you felt that Bishop Joannes had had the last laugh. The view from there as the sun set over the hills behind was one of the most magical sights I have ever seen. The river continued to glint in the sun as the light in the sky turned red.

Bishop Joannes Zakaria and the view over the Nile from the Bishop's House in Luxor

The bishop himself is a character. Bearing a distinct resemblance to former (Labour) Home Secretary Charles Clarke, this burly bishop took us to sites, details of which cannot be published. When asked to indicate the government’s likely response to some of his activities, he simply bulged his eyes out at me and ran his finger ominously across his neck.

Others meanwhile are well documented, such as the extension to St George’s Church in Nag el Sigh, Luxor, which was completed with Aid to the Church in Need funds. The bishop explained that much of the work had taken place in secret one night. Visiting the church, the parishioners stayed behind to sing the Our Father in Arabic in honour of benefactors.

Find out how you can help Christians in Egypt

Egypt Patriarch's message of thanks

In April, our Head of Press and Information John Pontifex travelled with a small Aid to the Church in Need team to Egypt on a fact-finding trip. It was his second attempt to visit the faithful in Egypt, after the original travel plans were put on ice as the 25th January Revolution gathered pace. In this series of blogs, John  will be posting his diary entries from the trip, giving an eye-witness glimpse into life for Egypt's 10 million Christians - more than any other country in the Middle East.
Monday, 11th April 2011
Ever thought you were about to be killed?

That’s what went through my mind just a couple of hours ago. We were driving on yet another super highway when suddenly the car we were in suddenly died on us. Truth to tell it wasn’t a complete surprise, the car had been making some very peculiar noises and had had to be jump-started a little bit earlier on. But nonetheless, it was a total shock when it gave out on the middle lane of the motorway in the dark.

There were no street lights and so we thought that it was only a matter of time before a car driving at top speed ran into the back of us. Worse still, we were driving uphill. So at risk to life and limb, we got out and pushed the car to the hard shoulder, hoping (and praying!) the oncoming traffic would dodge us.

Fortunately, it did. We realised the vehicle had over-heated and the radiator was bone dry. The Patriarch’s secretary, whose car it was and who was driving at the time, was mortified and apologised profusely. A number of us were too busy semi-hyper-ventilating to stammer out a response! Anyhow, it all worked out ok. An SOS was sent out and sure enough another clergy vehicle came and found us and brought us back. I don’t think the Patriarch will have too much trouble persuading the head of Aid to the Church in Need's projects that it might be a good idea to help fund a new car.

In fact, earlier that day we had had an audience with the Patriarch in which he had stressed the importance of project support from Aid to the Church in Need. The Patriarch – who is a Cardinal at the same time (a sort of belt-and-braces approach to ecclesiastical authority) – explained the pastoral priorities of the Coptic Catholic Church. The prelate – by the name of Antonios Naguib – singled out formation – catechesis and Christian education – for the young and for priests and Sisters too.

He thanked ACN for its commitment to Christian schools, the training of Sisters and priests and for the charity’s work in support of catechesis and catechetical training centres. And he gave this very moving testimony to ACN’s benefactors:

He also went on to say that in this time of flux, when the political future is so uncertain, it’s crucial that bishops, priests, Sisters and lay people put their heads above the parapet and speak up and claim their rights in the new Egypt. Otherwise, they might just miss their one and only chance. He too warned about the rise of Islamism. He said: “We really rely on the friends and benefactors of Aid to the Church in Need. The most important thing they do to help us is pray for us.”

Find out how you can help Christians in Egypt