Coptic Church Leaders Back Pope Tawadros Amid Reported Campaign to Isolate Him

Rumors that Pope Tawadros would be removed from his chair have prompted a response from clergy and lay members of the Coptic Church, according to the report. The report says electronic pages promoted forms on social media aimed at isolating the Pope, and that they circulated claims against him over his policies of openness toward other churches, which he has pursued since taking the Marmara chair. The same pages were said to have criticized the entry of women into cathedrals.

A group of priests in the United States, speaking for several churches, issued a statement announcing their full solidarity with the Pope. The statement rejected what it called deliberate promotion of rumors and lies, and described the campaigns as aimed at breaking the church’s unity and creating confusion among Coptic believers. It also called on those it described as absent from God’s will to stop what it called shameful acts.

Anba Sirabion, described as the bishop of Los Angeles in the United States, told the report that the rumors were media exaggerations. He acknowledged that members of the Holy Synod hold differences of opinion on some subjects, but said no group was conspiring or writing a document against the Church. He added that not everything circulated online should be believed, and that the Church was being attacked from within and outside, with the aim of destabilizing it.

The report says Mattaraiyah al-Giza issued an official statement describing an attack on the Church and its symbols and values. According to the report, the statement said the faith was in danger and attributed the campaigns to a group it described as having been formed in opposition, not built on the church’s foundations.

The campaigns against Pope Tawadros, according to the report, began in 2015 with groups formed to oppose amendments to the Coptic marriage regulations. Those groups later spread through social media pages using names such as “Protectors of Faith” and “Sons of Pope Shenouda, Protectors of Orthodox Faith.” The report says the pages sought to portray a disagreement between the Pope and bishops of the Church’s traditional current as a matter of overreach. The Pope, the report says, warned against these pages more than once, and in one sermon said faith does not need protecting because Christ protects it, while criticizing some bishops who claimed to defend the faith.

Anba Agathon, a bishop who has repeatedly issued statements on Church matters, issued a new statement on a Saturday evening. It was signed in the name of a group of priests and was presented as declaring solidarity with him against what it called a vicious campaign. The statement said the bishop had undertaken to defend the faith and the Church’s laws, and that his statements were based on study and respect for people’s feelings. It also said such accusations would be resolved according to Church history, and described the bishop’s supporters as an opposing force against new teachings that the statement said had reached the level of heresy.

The report notes that Agathon’s statement drew controversy among Coptic Christians, since it is one of a series of statements he has issued in cases where the report describes the Church as taking a hostile attitude toward the Pope. The report also says he issued a statement commenting on a ruling by the court of Demanhour, which referred papers concerning a monk and a colleague, described as the headmaster of a squadron, to the Mufti in the case of the killing of Anba Epiphanius.

Source: Read the original report (translated from Arabic)