Tag: Pope Tawadros II

17 sentenced to death for Coptic church bomb attacks

October 12, 2018 Egypt Alexandria, Cairo, Copts, Egypt, Islamic State, Minya, Palm Sunday, Pope Tawadros II

Egypt’s military court has handed death sentences to 17 people for carrying out bomb attacks on Coptic churches in 2016 and 2017, the BBC reports. The attacks, which killed dozens of people, were claimed by Islamic State. One of them was the bomb explosion in a chapel adjacent to the . . . Read More

Egypt’s Copts nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

September 28, 2018 Egypt Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Copts, Egypt, Giza, Islamic extremism, Islamic State, Mohamed Morsi, Muslim Brotherhood, Pope Tawadros II

In October last year the Coptic church in Sohag, Minya governorate, had its electricity and water supply cut by police, who said they had received complaints from Muslim villagers (Watani)

Egypt’s Coptic Christians have been nominated for the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize for choosing peaceful coexistence over retaliation in the face of persecution, reports the US-based news site PR Newswire. It is believed to be the first time in the 116-year history of the prize that an ethnic religious group . . . Read More

Egypt to pay for Coptic bomb attack victim’s surgery in Germany

June 21, 2018 Egypt Cairo, Copts, Egypt, Islamic extremism, Pope Tawadros II, Women

It’s been 18 months since Coptic Christian Samiha Tawfiq was badly injured in the bomb attack on Cairo’s St. Peter and Paul church, which claimed 27 lives and injured 49. It also took away one side of Samiha’s face. Samiha and her husband Koleny were sitting in the respective women’s . . . Read More

Egypt: Families of beheaded Copts finally reunited with remains of loved ones

May 16, 2018 Egypt Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Cairo, Copts, Egypt, Islamic State, Libya, Minya, Pope Tawadros II, Ramadan, Samalut, Upper Egypt

After a three-year wait and a number of broken promises, the Egyptian Coptic families of 20 men beheaded by IS in Libya in 2015 have finally received their loved ones’ remains. The leader of the Coptic Church, Pope Tawadros II, accompanied by several bishops, priests and deacons, welcomed the 20 . . . Read More

Saudi Arabia told: ‘Christians are not second-class citizens’

April 27, 2018 Saudi Arabia Catholics, Education, Justin Welby, King Salman, Minorities, Mohammad bin Salman, Pope Tawadros II, Religious freedom, Saudi Arabia

There are no churches in Saudi Arabia and Christians have to meet in secret. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)

A senior Vatican official told Saudi officials during a visit last week that Christians must not be treated as second-class citizens. “During my meetings, I insisted very much on this point, that Christians and non-Muslims are spoken of well in schools and that they are never considered second-class citizens,” the . . . Read More

Egypt’s elections and the man dividing the country’s Copts

March 14, 2018 Egypt Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Arab Spring, Aswan, Asyut, Bahrain, Cairo, Catholics, Churches, Converts, Copts, Egypt, El-Ghad Party, Elections, Faiyum, Hosni Mubarak, Islamic extremism, Islamic State, Minya, Mohamed Morsi, Muslim Brotherhood, Pope Tawadros II, Protestants, Samalut, Sinai, Sohag, Sunni, Tanta, Terrorism, Upper Egypt

Walking around Cairo you would be forgiven for thinking that President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi was the only candidate running in the elections later this month. His is the only grandiose face bearing down on passers-by, while billboards of his rival, Mousa Mostafa Mousa, are nowhere to be seen. Egypt’s 26-28 March presidential elections have . . . Read More

Saudi Crown Prince makes ‘unprecedented’ visit to Coptic Pope

March 6, 2018 Copts, Egypt, Mohammad bin Salman, Pope Tawadros II, Saudi Arabia

On his first public trip abroad as the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman yesterday (5 March) visited close ally Egypt and met the leader of the Coptic Church, Reuters reports. Saudi’s al-Arabiya TV channel showed Prince Mohammed and Pope Tawadros II walking together in Cairo’s St. Mark’s . . . Read More

Church built to honour beheaded Copts, but families still waiting for bodies’ return

February 14, 2018 Egypt Copts, Egypt, Islamic State, Libya, Minya, Pope Tawadros II, Tunisia, Upper Egypt

Tomorrow, 15 February, will mark the third anniversary of the beheading of 20 Egyptian Copts and a Ghanaian Christian, carried out by IS on the Libyan coast. In remembrance of the 21 Christians, a new church is to be inaugurated in Upper Egypt’s Minya province, where the Egyptians came from. As . . . Read More

Egypt Minister: Churches have right to protection ‘Islam guarantees’

February 1, 2018 Egypt Churches, Copts, Egypt, El-Arish, Islamic extremism, Pope Tawadros II, Sinai

Entrance to a Coptic Church in Egypt. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)

Egypt’s Minister of Religious Affairs, Mokhtar Gomaa, has said that churches, as well as mosques, have the legal right to be protected. He said this in response to a controversy involving Sheikh Abdullah Roshdy, who in a TV show said Muslims should not “congratulate non-Muslims on their religious occasions that . . . Read More

Egypt church celebrates long-awaited official opening

January 15, 2018 Egypt Churches, Copts, Egypt, Islamic extremism, Islamic State, Minya, Pope Tawadros II

Members of the Holy Virgin and Mar Girgis church staged a sit-in to protest the closure of their church in October. (Photo: Watani)

A Coptic church in Minya, Upper Egypt, was officially allowed to open last week for the first time since it was built in 2015, and three months after clashes with local Muslims had forced it to close indefinitely. The Holy Virgin and Mar Girgis church in the village of Sheikh . . . Read More

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