Although some contemporary Egyptian studies have broached aspects of the relationship between the Coptic Orthodox Church and the regime, few have examined developments in the political rapport between the two in the last decade. Important studies have touched on the relationship between the state and church during Nasser's regime,Footnote ¹ the Sadat years,Footnote ² and the early years of the Mubarak regime, up to the first half of the 1990s.Footnote ³ However, there is a paucity of literature on the relationship between the Coptic church and the Egyptian state in the past ten years, a lacuna that this study addresses.Footnote ⁴

This paper asserts that in 1952 an entente was forged between the Coptic Orthodox Church and the Egyptian government that provided the church with concessions in return for its political allegiance to the regime. The period prior to 1952Footnote ⁵ also witnessed the Coptic church leadership forging alliances with regimes in power; however, its ability to represent Copts vis-à-vis the state was rivaled by other Coptic voices in civil society such as the Majlis al-Milli. From 1952 on, the inhibition of Copts' voices in civil society increased the church's political power, and it developed into the undisputed voice representing the Coptic community. The relationship between church and state in the past fifty years has been volatile, affected not only by the relationship between the leaders of the church and state but also by the emergence of other important players within and outside these two entities. Strains characteristic of the period leading up to the dissolution of the entente in the 1970s are becoming visible in the current church–state relationship. This paper suggests that the current entente between the church and the state is being stretched to the limit, although it is not likely to be dissolved.

A set of propositions regarding the dynamics and nature of the entente are put forward here. First, a multiplicity of actors both within the ranks of the Coptic Orthodox Church's leadership and within the state and its various apparatuses influence the entente. In other words, we must go beyond the analysis of the church as a body of clerics with a homogenous stand and of the state as espousing a unified agenda vis-à-vis the Coptic church. Second, there is much debate about whether a political role for the church is desirable and how to distinguish among the realms of the political, civil, and spiritual. Highly influential Islamist writers such as Mohammed al-ʿAwa, for example, have argued that the politicization of the Coptic Orthodox Church's role has had a detrimental impact on national unity.Footnote ⁶ Others, however, such as writer and Coptic activist Magdy Khalil, have asserted that the leadership of the Coptic Orthodox Church has pursued a patriotic rather than political role.Footnote ⁷ Third, a set of questions relates to the impact of an entente between state and church on the status of Copts as a minority.Footnote ⁸

The relationship between the Coptic Orthodox Church and the ruling regime has been volatile, at times highly cooperative and at others highly conflictual. This paper deals with the changing relationship between the church and the Egyptian government since 2000 in particular but also draws upon the historical and political contexts in which it evolved. Many characteristics of the contemporary relationship between the Coptic Orthodox Church and the ruling government emanated from the rules of engagement established between the church and Nasser's regime in the 1950s and 1960s and the Sadat regime in the 1970s.

THE EMERGENCE OF AN INFORMAL ENTENTE

Of particular significance to the study of contemporary relations between the church and the state in Egypt is the impact of Nasser's regime on political relations among the state, the Coptic church, the Coptic laity. The policies institutionalized during Nasser's era affected the balance of power between the ecclesiastical and lay orders within the church and the Coptic community at large. Until the 19th century, the Coptic Orthodox Church wielded much authority as the representative of Copts. However, members of the Coptic laity became more influential in church matters and church–state relations in the 19th century. These lay members came from a class of educated Copts who rose to occupy influential positions in the government and became prosperous landowners. Their status and wealth empowered them to play an active role in shaping policies affecting the Coptic community. Their lobbying culminated in a consultative council, the Majlis al-Milli, which was composed of lay Copt members who were to participate in the governance of the affairs and activities of the Coptic church. The Majlis al-Milli was established in 1874 as a parallel institution to the Coptic Orthodox Church with a mandate to oversee Coptic endowments (awqāf), Coptic schools and institutions, and Copts' personal status courts.

Up to the 1950s, there was a power struggle between the Coptic Orthodox Church and the Majlis al-Milli over the latter's mandate, with the church often refusing to cooperate or to allow the majlis to influence the regulation of the financial resources or the management of internal church matters. Nevertheless, the Majlis al-Milli continued to play an extremely important role in the life of Copts and the church by virtue of its influential representatives, who often had access to those in power within the government, and by virtue of its relentless struggle to reform the Coptic Orthodox Church. It emerged as another legitimate voice representing Copts, thereby undermining the hegemony of the Coptic Orthodox Church as the sole mediator and Coptic representative vis-à-vis the state. Hassan notes that “the fierce competition, between the clergy and the lay upper class, also played itself out around the issue of who was to represent the community before the state—a prerogative that for centuries had been the church's.”Footnote ⁹ In addition to influencing key governmental decisions and policies affecting Copts, the Majlis al-Milli also weighed in on the selection of the patriarch, the leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church.Footnote ¹⁰

The authoritarian nature of Nasser's regime led to an inhibition of political pluralism and civil-society activism, which negatively affected the participation of Copts in both arenas and in church reform as well. Nasser's government adopted policies to deliberately curb the powers of the Majlis al-Milli. The 1957 presidential decree regarding the new bylaws for the election of the patriarch reflected all of the demands made by the conservative ecclesiastical ranks within the church and dismissed all the concerns and propositions of the Majlis al-Milli. For example, the new election bylaws stipulated that the candidate must be at least forty years of age and must have been ordained as a monk for at least fifteen years.Footnote ¹¹ The latter meant that the highly educated, reform-minded men who had joined the monasteries only recently were excluded from the nomination process. The proreform movement had wished that the nominated candidate be selected by the largest number of votes. The conservative members of the clergy, in contrast, wanted to list the candidates with the largest number of votes and then have a child draw a name. The government approved the selection of the candidate through the draw system.

Other policies adopted by Nasser's regime also curbed the powers of the Majlis al-Milli. First, in 1955, the unified court system came into being and the personal status courts for Copts were annulled, thus eliminating one of the majlis's sources of power. Second, the Coptic awqāf were removed from the authority of the Majlis al-Milli and assigned to the Coptic Orthodox Church's waqf organization, whose members were to be chosen by the pope, “thereby depriving the Communal Council of its financial control.”Footnote ¹² Moreover, the sequestration of both Islamic and Coptic awqāf and the restrictions laid on property ownership by the churches and monasteries to 200 feddans also impacted the Majlis al-Milli.Footnote ¹³

The state's imposition of restrictions on civil society in general inhibited virtually all forms of civic life, including Coptic civic engagement, whether with respect to church reform or to national politics. Coptic nongovernmental organizations were co-opted by the government and in some cases their property sequestrated (as in the case of the Coptic Hospital in Cairo). Further, Coptic members of the aristocracy, as with other members of the same social class, became politically marginalized once their principle asset, land, was taken from them through land-reform measures adopted by the new government.

The weakening of the Coptic laity was accompanied by the strengthening of the church's political and social role. As Hassan notes, “Ironically, President Nasser's authoritarian regime unwittingly schooled the church for a political role by weakening the Christian secular aristocracy as well as the liberal institutions like Parliament and the Communal Council in which they played an important role.”Footnote ¹⁴ First, the church's role as religious and political representative of the Copts was deepened. Second, although Copts were engaged in the public life of the nation as citizens with different ideological, political, and cultural affiliations, the role of the church as spokesman on behalf of the Copts was strengthened, so religious affiliation became the Copts' main marker, not their citizenship. Third, the weakening of the Majlis al-Milli was not accompanied by the strengthening of any other institution that pressed the church for greater accountability, transparency, and reform.

Many commentatorsFootnote ¹⁵ have pointed to the importance of the personal relationship that developed between Nasser and PopeFootnote ¹⁶ Kyrollos VI in resolving sectarian issues. This personal relationship was very important for the emergence of an informal entente between the church and the state, one that entailed the state offering the church leadership concessions in return for its political support. The concessions granted included approval of and financial support for the construction of St Mark's Cathedral. Nasser dispensed half a million pounds from the government's budget for the construction of the new cathedral and participated in its inaugural festivities.Footnote ¹⁷ Moreover, because the security apparatus granted church-building permits, which were by no means easy to obtain, Nasser's intervention certainly facilitated the process. Heikal recounts that

Moreover, because the patriarch was elevated to the position of the representative of the Copts, he was granted important political concessions regarding Coptic representation in public life. Hassan notes that “it was an open secret that anyone wishing to get into the single party electoral body he [the president] had set up, the Liberation Rally, had to get the Pope's blessing, because Nasser submitted the list of his electoral appointments to the pope for scrutiny.”Footnote ¹⁹

In return, Pope Kyrollos rendered Nasser consistent and unlimited political support, not only as an individual but also on behalf of the Copts in general. In 1967, when Nasser announced his resignation after the defeat of the 1967 war, Pope Kyrollos visited the president in his home to announce the Copts' insistence on his leadership.Footnote ²⁰ The personal friendship between the two became a symbol of the forces binding the Egyptian state with its Coptic citizenry. No longer were individuals voicing their demands, aspirations, and agendas via conventional channels of citizen engagement with the state, such as civil-society organizations and political parties. The church assumed the position of mediator between the Copts and the state.Footnote ²¹ Where Copts were appointed in the government, the church assumed that it could play, by extension, the role of mediator between them and the state. However, the mobilization of these candidates was much more difficult, as Heikal argues:

BREAKDOWN IN THE SADAT–SHENOUDA ENTENTE

The death of Nasser in 1970 followed by Kyrollos's death in 1971 brought two new actors to the scene—President Sadat and Pope Shenouda III. At the outset, a similar kind of entente was forged between the two leaders. Shenouda made several statements and gestures to indicate his support for the new president, and the latter granted concessions to the new patriarch. According to Moussa Sabry, a close confidante of the president,Footnote ²³ the concessions that Sadat bestowed upon Shenouda included “when the Majlis al-Milli was established, the government gave ear to the Pope in the selection of the members and the Prime Minister asked the pope for a list of nominated candidates as members of the People's Assembly so that the government can choose from among them.”Footnote ²⁴ Both Sabry and Heikal recount that Sadat met with Shenouda and the bishops and said that if the pope wished to construct thirty churches, he would approve fifty churches. Later on, the bishops complained that the interior minister al-Nabawy Ismail was very reluctant to implement the president's approval of the fifty churches, and none of the bureaucratic obstacles encountered were removed. Bureaucracy, red tape, and resistance from the state security apparatus meant that although having a presidential decree was one thing, implementation was another.Footnote ²⁵

A series of factors contributed to the heightening of political tensions between Sadat and the pope, including the rise of Islamist groups, increased sectarian incidents, and the growing role of Coptic emigrants as a lobby group in the United States against Sadat's policies.Footnote ²⁶ Sadat's increased representation of himself as “the believer president” and support for the Islamization of society as well as the nation's constitution were interpreted as attacks on the fundamental principle of citizenship founded on a national rather than religious identity. Moreover, none of the recommendations made by the “truth commission” headed by Gamal al-Oteify in the famous “al-Oteify report” of 1972 were implemented by the government.Footnote ²⁷ One of the report's most important recommendations was reconsideration of the legal framework governing the construction and repair of churches that required a presidential permit on a case-by-case basis.Footnote ²⁸

For his part, Sadat was highly provoked by Shenouda's revolutionary style of politics, much different from his predecessor's nonconfrontational, low-key manner. In March 1980, Shenouda responded in words and deed to what he perceived to be the Sadat government's passivity and inaction toward acts of violence waged against Christians as well as the proposed ridda law (which stipulated that a person who converts from Islam will face the death penalty). The pope also made a politically charged act: he cancelled Christian Orthodox Easter celebrations and withdrew to the monastery. The cancellation of Easter celebrationsFootnote ²⁹ and mass was an oppositional tactic of far-reaching political ramifications. It sent a message of protest not only to the government but also to the entire world, including the U.S. administration and the Copts of the diaspora. Moreover, Pope Shenouda's retreat to the monastery was an equally important oppositional tactic; it signified his disengagement from his public role in Egyptian life and broadcast discontent and anger.

The contractual arrangement between the president and the pope was breaking down. The deterioration culminated in the president's decree annulling the 1971 presidential decision that had appointed Shenouda pope. The government mouthpiece Mayo published the practicalities of the pope's house arrest, the invalidation of his signature on all official documents, his confinement to his monastery in Wadi al-Natrun, and his prohibition from meeting with the public.Footnote ³⁰ The entente was over.

According to Heikal, the real cause of the intensification of conflict between the president and the patriarch was the latter's refusal to promote Coptic pilgrimages to Jerusalem, which would have enhanced the position of the president in meeting the Camp David agreement vis-à-vis tourism promotion.Footnote ³¹ Sabry argues that Shenouda's refusal to support Sadat's policies led to the tension in their relations. He suggests that Sadat's public attack on the pope in his 14 May 1980 speech was a reaction to news that the pope had urged Copts not to participate in the referendum on changing Article 2 of the constitution.

For a bit of background, in 1971 Sadat had amended Egypt's constitution to make reference to Islamic shariʿa as a source of legislation. In 1979, Sadat proposed a referendum to further amend Article 2 to stipulate that “Islam is the religion of the state and Arabic its official language. Islamic shariʿa is the principal source of legislation.”Footnote ³² This rewording meant that the shariʿa held precedence over all other sources of legislation; judges could then dismiss civil law deemed incompatible with the shariʿa. Pope Shenouda expressed his rejection of the proposed amendment before and after it was passed. On 17 January 1977, Shenouda convened a meeting with the Holy Synod. It concluded that because the shariʿa grows out of the Qurʾan and the sunna, it should apply only to Muslims because its application nationwide would signal a flagrant violation of the principle of freedom of religious belief enshrined in the constitution.Footnote ³³ On 26 March 1980, “Pope Shenouda delivered a speech in which he angrily attacked the idea that the shariʿa law should be the basis for legislation and claimed that Islam was being made the new form of nationalism.”Footnote ³⁴ Further, Shenouda's insistence on greater representation of Copts in decision-making positions and on public trials for those who attacked Copts in sectarian incidents was not welcomed by Sadat. Sabry also recounts that the protests organized by Copts who met Sadat in the United States, which he found to be a great embarrassment, were pivotal in escalating the crisis. In fact, shortly afterward Sadat decided not to meet with the pope.Footnote ³⁵

The Mayo announcement also declared that a papal committee comprising five bishops would be responsible for overseeing papal duties. Although the escalation of tension could be attributed to the rising animosity between Sadat and Shenouda, the actions of several other players had important bearings on the crisis. First was the state security apparatus, which reported directly to the president. It believed that the pope's weekly meeting with the Coptic congregation should be cancelled because it sparked intense sectarian feelings among youth. Pope Shenouda refused to comply with the request. The state security apparatus advised that the bishop in Alexandria be relocated, accusing him of stirring up sectarian strife. Shenouda did not budge. Moreover, the state security list of bishops allegedly fomenting sectarianism and fanaticism led to the decision to imprison them after the widely publicized arrests of September 1981.Footnote ³⁶

Despite the pope's attempt to continue as the dominant Coptic spokesman (or statesman), Coptic power bases had varied reactions to the friction with Sadat. In Alexandria, the Majlis al-Milli and the synod of bishops supported the pope's stance. Other local councils took a more conciliatory stance especially after witnessing heightened sectarian tensions in their own dioceses.Footnote ³⁷ The divergence among the bishops was also conspicuous. According to Gouda, Bishop Samuel urged Coptic members of the People's Assembly to vote in favor of the proposed reform of Article 2 of the constitution despite Pope Shenouda's opposition.Footnote ³⁸

Another power to contend with were the Copts of the diaspora, who had not yet mobilized resources and forces at the time of Pope Kyrollos. Several Coptic emigrant lobbyists supported the progovernment position taken by bishops such as Samuel and Athanasious. They painted Shenouda as a hardliner and suggested that more compliant allies could be found within the church.Footnote ³⁹ Some members of the Coptic diaspora in the United States, for example, refused to recognize the papal committee established by Sadat, lobbied against the bishops who accepted such roles, and continued to protest against the Egyptian government's handling of sectarian issue. As the Coptic associations established in the diaspora grew in strength, they represented an autonomous voice often incongruent with that adopted by the church.

THE EMERGENCE OF A NEW ENTENTE BETWEEN SHENOUDA AND THE STATE

More than four years after his appointment as president, Hosni Mubarak terminated Pope Shenouda's house arrest in 1985. There is a paucity of historical material on the circumstances leading to the decision to end house arrest and open new lines of communication between church and state. However, substantial evidence suggests that the patriarch made a new commitment to abandon his earlier confrontational style of politics. Shenouda's tone and discourse vis-à-vis the government changed radically after his release in 1985.Footnote ⁴⁰ This change could not be solely attributed to the change in government leadership. Although no doubt there was a personal element to the animosity between Shenouda and Sadat, historical accounts of the relationship between the pope and then vice-president Mubarak indicate a high level of enmity between those two as well.Footnote ⁴¹ The government's less tolerant policy toward Islamists also improved relations between the regime and the church.

As a consequence of the growing threat of Islamist militancy, some argue that the government abandoned its policy of engagement for a more confrontational one, giving the church and the state a common enemy.Footnote ⁴² Yet Pope Shenouda's rapprochement with the government came earlier than the latter's crackdown on Islamists, thus negating a causal relation between the two. Shenouda's nonconfrontational approach could not be attributed to a change in the sectarian tensions between Copts and Muslims either. Sectarian strife continued unabated throughout the 1980s.Footnote ⁴³

Perhaps the changed rapport was affected by the Egyptian government's loss of fervor and enthusiasm for pushing peace with Israel at all costs and by Shenouda's new efforts to limit the influence of expats as pressure tools.Footnote ⁴⁴ However, the church leadership could not inhibit or control voices of protest among Coptic emigrants, both during previous decades and after the termination of his arrest. They continued to be a force that acted independently of the church.

The Report on the Religious Situation Footnote ⁴⁵ describes the relationship between the government and the pope after his release as involving a “tactical agreement.”Footnote ⁴⁶ The report argues that some elements of the tactical agreement existing in the Kyrollos–Nasser entente were restored. An examination of the relationship between the two suggests that this entente may have entailed Shenouda's pursuing of a nonconfrontational policy toward the government in return for termination of his house arrest and for restoration of communication between the patriarch and the president. It may also have included greater collaboration between state security and the church because many of the issues on the agenda involved state security intervention in matters such as the construction and repair of churches.

In addition to adopting a nonconfrontation policy toward sectarian incidents, the pope also openly supported the Mubarak regime and its policies—very much in line with his previous support for Sadat in the earlier years and with his predecessor's policy in the 1950s and 1960s. The political function of the patriarch as a supporter of the president and the representative of the Copts was enforced from the time of his release from house arrest until the referendum over the constitutional amendments in March 2007 although this support was not consistently extended to all the regime's power bases.

Shenouda not only expressed his personal support for the president and his party but also institutionalized this policy across the church hierarchy. For example, in the presidential elections of 2005, in which Mubarak was campaigning for his reelection to a fifth term, the pope endorsed Mubarak's renomination and called upon Coptic Christians to vote for him. In addition, he officially ordered all bishops to vote positively in the referendum for Mubarak's fifth term. The Holy Synod, led by Pope Shenouda, issued an official statement in the lead-up to the referendum backing Mubarak. The implications of this action were far reaching. It signified a political stand rather than the expression of a personal opinion—a stand institutionalized on all levels of the church hierarchy and officially representing the church's will, represented by the Holy Synod. It also sent a message to Copts that they, like their religious leaders, the models whose examples are to be followed, should support Mubarak.Footnote ⁴⁷

The Coptic Orthodox Church capitalized on its religious power to make other politically significant gestures in support of Mubarak's regime. For example, the Holy Synod celebrated Mubarak's victory in the presidential referendum by having all churches nationwide ring their bells. This gesture was highly significant given that church bells, in accordance with orthodox doctrine, are to be rung only on the commencement of mass and other religious rites.Footnote ⁴⁸ The use of a purely religious practice for an overtly political function blurred the lines between religious and political realms.Footnote ⁴⁹

Pope Shenouda's enforcement of punitive measures against members of the ecclesiastical order who dared choose another presidential candidate showed his willingness to eliminate any political opposition to Mubarak in the Coptic church. Father Philopateer Gameel, a priest working in one of Cairo's poor suburbs, was a member of the al-Ghad party,Footnote ⁵⁰ whose leader, Ayman Nour, ran against Mubarak for president. Pope Shenouda froze Father Philopateer's service for a period of two years (i.e., inactivating his duties as a priest). Although the decision was made in the name of the Holy Synod, it was not preceded by a trial in violation of church laws.Footnote ⁵¹

Further, in the run-up to the People's Assembly elections of 2005, the Coptic-church leadership called upon followers to vote unilaterally for National Democratic Party (NDP) candidates. In some dioceses, priests were openly urging parishioners to support NDP candidates (all Muslim) even if competing candidates were Christian. For example, in the Upper Egyptian governorate of Minya, the church instructed parishioners to vote for the NDP candidate instead of the Tagammʿ (leftist-party) candidate, who happened to be a Christian. This scenario was reenacted in several electoral constituencies around the country.

Pope Shenouda's position on the amendment of the constitution also showed a clear bias toward the NDP line. In 2007, Mubarak proposed amending the constitution under the premise that some articles were outdated. Opposition parties argued that some amendments aimed to restrict political freedom and undermine the prospects of any other party contesting the NDP. As a consequence, members of parliament from opposition parties boycotted the parliamentary session in which the vote on the constitutional amendments was to be cast. Opposition parties and other political forces also led a nationwide campaign to urge Egyptian citizens not to go to the polls on 26 March 2007 as an act of protest. The NDP desperately needed citizen participation in the referendum in order to give semblance that the changes passed democratically with the majority of Egyptians supporting them.Footnote ⁵² It is in this context that Pope Shenouda's request to all Copts to participate in the referendum must be understood. All bishops were instructed to inform parish priests in their dioceses to mobilize parishioners to participate in the referendum. This involved making announcements during church services on a sustained basis in all parishes. To set an example, when Pope Shenouda cast his vote, he made a statement at the polling station about the importance of Egyptians participating positively in the elections for “the sake of achieving freedom, stability, democracy, and development for all.”Footnote ⁵³

One of the controversies sparked by the debates in the months before the constitutional referendum was the revision of Article 2, which the government insisted should be kept intact. Those in favor of amendment argued that because Egypt is characterized by religious pluralism and is a secular country, any reference to the Islamic shariʿa being the principle source of legislation should be removed, especially because neither the Egyptian constitution of 1923 nor that of 1953 made any such reference.Footnote ⁵⁴ Pope Shenouda's embrace of the government's viewpoint carried political weight against the secularists and provided a striking contrast to the fierce opposition he expressed to the very same article thirty years earlier during the Sadat era. In support of the government, Pope Shenouda said that the problem is not in the actual text (naṣ) but its application: because the majority of Egyptians are Muslim, it is their right to have Islam as the formal religion of the country and source of legislation, but Islam secured rights between people and guaranteed the rights of non-Muslims.

What is pertinent is Shenouda's reference to the rights of non-Muslims in Islam rather than the rights of citizens in a nation–state. Statements he made about the political role of the clergy in supporting the government further attest to his legitimizing the government's stand. He explained that officials need the support of the “men of religion” because they have credibility as being truthful with the people.Footnote ⁵⁵

Hany Labib, a writer on Coptic issues, interprets Shenouda's gestures as evidence of the pope's patriotism and commitment to the nation rather than a form of meddling in politics. He argues for a distinction between “patriotic loyalty” and “political activity or activism,” the former being a position that represents the nation as a whole, regardless of the difference in political, class, or religious affiliation, and the latter represents, for example, the clergy's adoption of a political role, an entirely different and unacceptable scenario. Based on this distinction, Labib argues that Pope Shenouda's support for the constitutional amendments and his calls upon Copts to participate in the referendum are examples of his patriotism. In a similar manner, Shenouda's position against the revision of Article 2 is another “patriotic stand.”Footnote ⁵⁶

By supporting the government's stand, however, the pope adopted a highly partisan position that privileged the NDP over other political parties and movements. It also suggests that all those who do not follow the government's policy positions are unpatriotic. According to Labib's argument, all political parties that boycotted the referendum were unpatriotic. Activists, intellectuals, and human-rights advocates of diverse political affiliations called for removing reference to the Islamic shariʿa: if Labib's argument regarding the pope's position applied, their support for secularism was also unpatriotic.Footnote ⁵⁷ However, other Copts, both members of the ecclesiastical order (e.g., Father Marcos Aziz) and the laity (e.g., renowned Coptic activist Magdy Khalil), also publicly called for revising the article along the lines prescribed by Bishop Marcos.Footnote ⁵⁸

Shenouda's politics of engagement with the government in general has also been criticized by different Coptic groups. One such criticism came from members of a lay movement composed of Coptic writers, thinkers, and activists from different ideological positions (leftist, liberal, progovernment, and antigovernment) who held two conferences on reforming the Coptic Orthodox Church.Footnote ⁵⁹ During those two conferences, many speakers expressed concern about the increasingly political role of the church and its impact on citizenship, namely, that Copts would engage with the state as followers of church directions or guidance rather than as independent citizens.

More outspoken criticism has been voiced by some Coptic groups in the diaspora who have accused Pope Shenouda of selling out to the government. For example, the U.S.-based Coptic–American Union, a stalwart lobbyist for Coptic rights in Egypt, has accused the pope of

Pope Shenouda conceded in an interview that he chooses not to reply to the “allegations of discrimination” made by the Copts in the diaspora because when he does, they accuse him of having come under the authority of the state.Footnote ⁶¹ Although these voices represent mostly small groups of Copts who have not established a large populist base among the Coptic laity, they nevertheless indicate that it cannot be taken for granted that the political views of the pope represent those of all Copts and that there are Copts who are prepared to publicly contest church policy without leaving the Coptic Orthodox Church. In other words, the voices of protest came from within the church's own constituency and not from outside.

The pertinent question here is the nature of the “rewards” bestowed upon the church hierarchy in return for their political alignment with Mubarak's policies. First, based on the rules of the entente set in the 1950s, it would be expected that the government grant the pope special privileges (e.g., in the nomination and appointment of Copts in government, in responding to his personal requests on political matters, etc.). Second, it would be expected that state security cooperate when sectarian incidents erupt and the church wishes to construct and renovate churches. In a bid to show government goodwill, a presidential decree delegated governors the responsibility of approving applications for the construction or the renovation of churches. However, the church continues to complain about obstacles to obtaining such permits.

Perhaps political support is only a window-dressing measure aimed at giving the impression of religious and political harmony but lacks any genuine intention to elicit structural change. Another possible interpretation is that the state security apparatus has become so powerful and vast that it is wrong to assume that its agenda is always in harmony with that of other agents in the government. It follows that the Coptic Orthodox Church must negotiate the terms of the entente on several fronts: with the president, the political policymakers, and the state security apparatus. Having to negotiate with more than one party increases the prospect of failure to reach agreement and hence complicates the rules and terms of the entente.

The tensions emerging in the entente between the Coptic Orthodox Church and the state following the Costantine crisis in 2004Footnote ⁶² resulted from the involvement of various power holders in mediating the relationship between the Coptic church and the state. These tensions suggest that the terms of the entente (the Coptic church rendering political support in exchange for particular government concessions for the church leadership) are being challenged by the policies pursued on both sides.

In 2004 the wife of a priest, Wafaʾ Costantine, left her marital home, where she was subject to domestic violence, and went to a police station, where she expressed her desire to convert to Islam. In light of the sensitivity of the person's identity (Coptic priest's wife), she was referred to the state security apparatus, which held her until agents informed her family, church, and community. In the absence of information regarding her whereabouts and the proliferation of rumors suggesting a possible kidnapping, hundreds of Coptic youth protested in the cathedral, calling for her return. Upon request from the church leadership and through the personal intervention of the president, the state security apparatus allowed the church access to Costantine, who subsequently expressed her desire to remain a Christian.Footnote ⁶³

The Costantine incident challenged the terms upon which the church–state entente were established in the 1950s. For its part, the Coptic Orthodox Church leadership felt that the government failed to provide it with the political concessions expected in the tactic bargain because, after promising Pope Shenouda that Costantine would be returned at a particular hour on a particular day, state security missed the appointment.Footnote ⁶⁴ Shenouda's image with his constituency was compromised and his pride wounded. In contrast, state security felt that the church leadership failed to conform to its obligations under the entente by openly accusing state security of mismanagement of the crisis. Shenouda's direct appeal to the president further embarrassed state security, which emerged as the defeated party. This affront affected the way state security–church relations later developed.

THE POLITICS OF CONTAINMENT: POLITICAL AND SECURITY REBUFF OF SHENOUDA

If the Wafaʾ Costantine saga reflected the tensions in the entente between the state security apparatus and the Coptic leadership, the Maximos crisis suggested not only an unwillingness on the part of the state security apparatus to support Pope Shenouda but also a reluctance on the part of the president. Less than two years after the Costantine saga, the Ministry of Interior approved the establishment and later expansion of a parallel Orthodox church in Muqattam, Cairo, with its own archbishop, sending a harsh personal and political message to Pope Shenouda. The Ministry of Interior's decision raised questions as to whether this was state security's revenge for its loss of face. The St. Athanassios Church was allowed to thrive and grow for two years until the Administrative Court—not the government—deemed its leader, Maximos, in violation of Egyptian law, thus leaving its status in limbo.Footnote ⁶⁵ However, the events taking place during those two years highlighted the growing tensions between the state and Pope Shenouda.

Max Michel became Maximos the First, founder of the St. Athanassios Church in Muqattam, Archbishop of the Holy Synod for the Orthodox Church in Egypt and the Middle East—a title that Pope Shenouda claimed he alone had the exclusive right to bear. Max Michel started his career as a student in the Coptic Orthodox Seminary, where he was ordained a consecrated deaconFootnote ⁶⁶ after graduation to serve in the city of Tanta.Footnote ⁶⁷ In 1976 Pope Shenouda terminated his service in the church although he was never excommunicated or charged in a church trial by the Holy Synod.

There are two different accounts of why the Pope turned against him. According to the official church account, Max Michel spread erroneous doctrines inconsistent with church teachings. He claimed the church banished him for admiring the teachings of the late Father Matta el-Meskeen, a renowned Coptic scholar, monk, and spiritual father of the monks of the Anba Makkar monastery, who had a long-term rift with Pope Shenouda.Footnote ⁶⁸ After expulsion, Max Michel established the St. Athanassios Association, in accordance with Egypt's nongovernmental-organization law, which allows citizens to establish organizations for the purpose of religious education. He recruited some members and supporters but later left Egypt for the United States to pursue a doctorate degree in theology at Saint Ellias College in Nebraska. There, according to Maximos, he joined the Holy Synod of the American Diaspora of True Orthodox Christians, who are Old Calendarists (Christians, mainly of Greek Orthodox origin, who follow the old Julian calendar as opposed to the Gregorian calendar). The Holy Synod ordained him assistant bishop, then bishop, and finally archbishop, enabling him to establish a synod for Egypt and the Middle East and ordain bishops and priests.

Egyptian law allows citizens to establish branches of organizations based abroad as long as they receive the approval of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The ministry granted him permission (there were rumors that it came at the personal request of Condoleezza Rice).Footnote ⁶⁹ Maximos's followers are mainly disgruntled members of the Coptic Orthodox Church or Copts who stood to benefit from Maximos's more lenient stands on divorce and remarriage. (Unlike the Coptic Orthodox Church, Maximos's church recognizes the eight conditions for divorce set by the Majlis al-Milli in 1948 and later rescinded by Pope Shenouda. It also allows the remarriage of divorced Copts.)

In July 2006 Maximos announced the establishment of the Holy Synod for the Orthodox in Egypt and the Middle East; he ordained two bishops and placed them in charge of archdioceses across the country. That initiative heightened the opposition of the Coptic Orthodox Church leadership. That the Ministry of Interior did not take any measures against the establishment of Maximos's church (although all churches require an official permit) was interpreted by the church hierarchy as deliberately undermining the authority and status of Pope Shenouda as the sole head and representative of the Orthodox church in Egypt. Although the Ministry of Interior did not officially issue Maximos a permit for the establishment of his church, it nonetheless reissued his identification card with his new name and the title “Head of the Synod of the Church of St. Athanassios.” It is surprising that the date of issuance is May 2005, well before he declared himself archbishop.Footnote ⁷⁰

Maximos was an embarrassment to the Coptic Orthodox Church, which made a series of pleas to the government to repress his church. Bishop Morcos said, “I hold the government responsible for his existence because up till now he [his church] has been functioning on an illegal basis. .–.–. I appeal to President Mubarak to put an end to this farce because we will not accept this.”Footnote ⁷¹ In the current Egyptian context, it is significant that although the government has continuously violated basic rights of belief and association, it opted not to take action against Maximos.

Pope Shenouda made several requests to the government to register the Coptic Orthodox Church ecclesiastical attire so that only accredited members of his clergy could be authorized to wear them.Footnote ⁷² Maximos dressed almost exactly as Pope Shenouda did, and bishops he ordained wore attire identical to that of Coptic Orthodox bishops. Shenouda alluded to the role of the security apparatus in the denial of his appeal: “I have previously spoken to Mubarak about the registration of monks' attire and he gave his orders for implementation, but we do not know who is responsible for delaying [implementation of] his orders.”Footnote ⁷³ Yet Mubarak's official statement indicated his unwillingness to support Shenouda against Maximos. When asked in a press conference about the split within the church, Mubarak commented, “I do not intervene in religious affairs just as I did not intervene in the affairs of the judiciary before, and the Copts are able to resolve their problems on their own without intervention from anyone.”Footnote ⁷⁴

Although the statement gave the semblance of respect for the autonomy of each institution, in effect it rejected Coptic appeals. Such appeals had come not only from church quarters but also from MPs and intellectuals. Twenty members of the Shura Council, for example, had asked the prime minister to demand a clarification of the government's position on the division in the Orthodox denomination for the first time in its history.Footnote ⁷⁵ Finally, Pope Shenouda warned in a television interview that “if the state supports Maximos, the Copts will revolt.”Footnote ⁷⁶ Although the church gives its constituency political directions, he suggested that the state should not take for granted the unconditional support of the government.

The Maximos saga underlined the strain on the church–government entente at all levels. The crisis was a political one as much as a security one. Mubarak's refusal to respond to the church's appeal pointed to the president's unwillingness to grant Pope Shenouda more prestige, legitimacy, and power.

SHENOUDA'S REPRISAL: WITHDRAWAL OF POLITICAL SUPPORT TO THE GOVERNMENT

The pope's response to the sectarian incident that erupted in May 2007 in the village of Ayat, Giza, attests to his abandonment of a quietist, behind-the-scenes approach to dealing with sectarian incidents. On 11 May 2007, a group of youth and men attacked Copts' property and homes after hearing a highly inflammatory Friday sermon by the local imam. Although state security and local leaders had consented to the construction of a church in Ayat, no steps had yet been taken to build it, but rumors had spread that the Christians were in the process of constructing it.Footnote ⁷⁷ Reports suggested that it took the central-security vehicles several hours to arrive on the scene despite immediate appeals for intervention. A fire broke out, and by the time firefighters arrived two hours later, the property had completely burned down.Footnote ⁷⁸

Pope Shenouda responded with an open letter addressed to the president and signed by the Majlis al-Milli in which they accused state security of complicity in sectarian strife because it knew of the activities leading up to the attack on the Copts and failed to take any measures to prevent them. Widely published in the Egyptian press, the letter embarrassed the Egyptian government and in particular state security, which has become the target of the church's open and public condemnation.

Shenouda's deviation from his part of the entente manifested itself in another important political incident: his withdrawal of political support for NDP candidates in the Shura Council elections of 2006. Although these elections are far less politically important than the presidential or parliamentary elections, this nevertheless was the first time he had failed to pledge his categorical support for the ruling party since his release from house arrest. Unlike in previous elections, Pope Shenouda did not instruct bishops to mobilize parishioners to vote for NDP candidates. For possibly the first time since the Nasser era, the patriarch did not ask Copts to vote in favor of the candidates of the ruling party. Instead, Copts were urged to give their vote to the candidate that represented their interests.Footnote ⁷⁹

Refraining from supporting the NDP can be seen as a political reprisal for what must have been perceived as the state's undermining of the pope (through tolerance for Maximos's church) and marginalizing Copts in the Shura Council. The Coptic Orthodox Church would have been consulted on the NDP nomination of Copts for the council, but because very few were appointed, by default the church was excluded from already limited participation in the appointment of political figures. This further testifies to increasing tension in relations between the pope and the regime and suggests that the rules of the entente—political support for the regime in return for political concessions for the church leadership—are being contested by both parties.