5
September 1981 A.D. Anwar
Sadat Deposes & Exiles Coptic Leader Shenouda III
Graves, Dan. “Coptic Leader Shenouda III
Deposed.” Christianity.com. Apr
2007. http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1901-2000/coptic-leader-shenouda-iii-deposed-11630845.html. Accessed 20 May 2014.
The Copts have a long and ancient
Christian heritage. Of Egyptian stock, their very name is from an Arabic word
derived from the Greek word meaning Egyptian. They became Christians in the time of the apostles.
Many credit Mark, writer of the Gospel that bears his name, as the one who
first brought the Christian faith to Egypt. During the monophysite
controversies of the 5th century, they rejected the ruling of the Council of
Chalcedon about the two natures of Christ and adopted a belief that has long
been referred to as monophysitism (but should be called miaphysitism*)--the
belief that Christ has only one nature, a merging of the human and divine. By
choosing to follow an interpretation seemingly contrary to Chalcedon, the Copts
distanced themselves from the rest of the church.
After the Islamic conquest of Egypt, the Copts
clung stubbornly to their faith. With a long tradition of martyrdom behind them
already, and they were not about to yield in spiritual matters to Islam. Even
their calendar dates from August, AD 294 in the days of their martyrs. In the
20th century Coptic faith cost them a great deal. Despite the Qu'ran's high
estimation of Christ, his followers were too often hated.
When Egypt threw off British rule under Nasser,
Copts were persecuted by Islamic fundamentalists. They were publicly humiliated
and discriminated against when they sought jobs. Their brave role in winning
independence was written out of the textbooks.
Anwar Sadat tried to soften Islamic antipathy to
the Copts. As late as 1977 he participated in a Coptic wedding. This only
raised fundamentalist ire against the Copts and Sadat. Throughout the 1970s,
Muslims broke into Coptic churches or set them on fire. When Coptic priests
protested, they were jailed. The property of Coptic Christians was vandalized
and looted.
In 1976 the Copts formed an organization to protest
against persecution. Pope (meaning Father) Shenouda III, the Coptic Patriarch,
was an active member. The Islamic majority saw this as subversive, thinking
wrongly that the Copts were discussing ways to form their own nation. Muslims
murdered the families of Copt priests and bombed a Coptic seminary. But when
the Copts responded by advertising their plight in American newspapers an
infuriated Sadat vowed to punish Shenouda. The Egyptian media began to
attribute Egyptian problems to the Christians.
The crisis came when Muslims seized a Copt's land
to build a mosque. The Copt fired his rifle in self-defense and a three day war
between local Copts and Muslims resulted. The fact that Copts had guns was said
by the Muslims to prove they intended to revolt. Muslims retaliated by burning
Christians to death in homes and flinging babies out of upper windows.
Sadat jailed a few of the Muslim ringleaders but
soon released them. Shenouda protested. In retaliation, on this day, September 5, 1981, Sadat exiled him to
a monastery in Western Egypt. Sadat's act did not appease the Islamic
fundamentalists who were still furious at his peace talks with Israel and his
secularist approach to government. On October 6 they assassinated him.
—————————— ;————
*Copts prefer that their position be known as
miaphysitism. "Monophysite" suggests that Christ has only one nature:
the divine. "Miaphysites" state that his nature, while one, is a
composite of both the human and divine.
Bibliography
1. Israeli, Raphael. Man of
Defiance; a Political Biography of Anwar Sadat. Totowa, N.J. : Barnes &
Noble Books, 1985.
2. Lefebure, Leo D.
"Christology from 'Below'."
(www.religion-online.org/cgi-bin/relsearchd.dll/showarticle?item_id=882)
3. Gross, Ernie. This Day in
Religion. New York, New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, 1990.
4. Mileham, Geoffrey S. Churches in
Lower Nubia. Philadelphia: University Museum, 1910. Source of the image.
5. Wright, Lawrence. The Looming
Tower; Al-Qaeda dn the Road to 9/11. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.
6. Various encyclopedia, magazine,
and internet articles on miaphysitism, Shenouda, Sadat and the Copts.
Last updated April, 2007.
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