Coptic voters have begun the process of electing a Coptic Orthodox Pope to succeed the late Pope Shenouda III on Monday morning. The voters will choose three finalists out of five candidates. These three will go on to run in the final phase of the electoral process: the 'alter lottery' on 4 November, in which a blindfolded child will randomly select the name of the church's next pope. About 2,406 electors from the Coptic community have been chosen by the church to cast their ballots in the papal electoral process. The electors are drawn from among Coptic archbishops, bishops, lay council members and agents of the archdioceses, as well as prominent Coptic laymen including Coptic newspaper editors-in-chief and members of the Egyptian Journalists' Syndicate. Additionally, there are five electors from the Ethiopian Church. The election will be held from 9am to 5pm Monday in Cairo's prominent Coptic Orthodox cathedral in Abbasiya. Eight ballot boxes have been laid out this morning to receive the votes. Two of them will be reserved for electors that live abroad. These can either come to Egypt to cast their ballots themselves or assign Egypt-based proxies to do it for them by obtaining legal authorization from their respective embassies. The winner will become the 118th Coptic Pope of Egypt and will replace Pope Shenouda III who passed away in March.
