Word: shenouda
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...ancient calendar of Egypt's Coptic Church, this is the Christmas season--and President Hosni Mubarak, a Muslim, had a present last week for his Christian community. He released Pope Shenouda III, 61, from a three-year- long house arrest and allowed him to resume his duties as spiritual leader of the Copts, the largest Christian group (6 million) in any Arab nation...
...month before he was assassinated, in 1981, President Anwar Sadat ordered the detention of Shenouda, eight bishops and 22 parish priests, accusing them of fomenting unrest. Since then, Shenouda has been forced to live at the 4th century Monastery of St. Bishoi, in the desert northwest of Cairo. In 1983 the government finally specified the charges against Shenouda. Among them: emphasizing a Coptic identity, urging churches to teach the old Coptic language, "encouraging hostility toward the regime" by asserting Copts' political grievances, and resisting legislation aimed at making Egypt more Islamic. Since then, however, Muslim and Christian enmity in Egypt...
...Shenouda has led a religious revival that fostered the ethnic identity of Egypt's Copts as a nation separate from, and older than, the Muslim majority. Indeed, many Copts feel that they, and not the Arabized Muslims, are the true Egyptians, the descendants of the pharaohs. As they are quick to point out, "Copt" is the Arabi-cized, then Europeanized, form of the Greek word for Egyptian. Although the Coptic language is used today only in the church's liturgy, it was the language of Egypt until the 13th century...
...Shenouda aggressively resisted the increasing Islamization of the country: in 1977, for example, he called on Copts to undertake a four-day fast to protest proposed legislation that would make it a capital crime to renounce Islam. The bill threatened Christians who convert to Islam to avoid stringent Coptic divorce laws, then apostatize once proceedings are over. The bill was shelved. He also complained often and bitterly that the government did not do enough to protect Copts from violent persecution by Muslim fanatics. Last year, after a reported series of church burnings, attacks on clergymen and forced conversions, Shenouda canceled...
...Shenouda's confrontational activities coincided with a marked increase in Islamic fervor and militancy among the country's Muslims, and in the wake of the violent incidents this spring and summer, some Copts began to fear for their physical safety. As Matta puts it: "All of us are in this dilemma, [because] Muslims feel Shenouda is a threat to Islam and the Koran. He was working against the line of the government and moderate Muslims." Most Copts feel that Shenouda's ouster is a tolerable price to pay for communal peace...