Pierre Loza reports on a conference pushing for reforms within the Coptic Orthodox Church that opened on the same day Pope Shenouda was marking his 35th year as head of the world's oldest church The recommendations of this conference are a gift to our pope, similar to the myrrh the wise men gave to Christ; they are symbolic in the sense that they are more intellectual than physical," said Kamal Zakhir, a Coptic businessman who writes extensively on Coptic issues. The two-day conference at the Enlightenment Association's headquarters, which started on 14 November, the day marking Pope Shenouda III's ascension to the Coptic Church's Papal See, was seen by many as sending a clear message of discontent to the church's leadership. Zakhir, one of the conference's organisers, was prohibited from serving the church after a string of articles he wrote in a Sunday school magazine defending a monk expelled from his monastery in July 1994. "We are simply debating our vision and the church leadership is free to accept or reject it, we are not issuing holy orders here," insists Zakhir, who sees the conference as a vehicle for positive dialogue and not a platform for any revolt against the church authorities. That the conference's opening session, The Church and the Nation: Copts on the Grounds of Citizenship, included a number of prominent Muslim intellectuals, added to the controversy generated by the event. "We made a point of inviting Muslims because we wanted it to be an unequivocally nationalist, rather than sectarian, occasion," Zakhir explains, citing the 1911 Coptic Conference, later followed by an Islamic conference, as an event that exacerbated sectarian division, an example to be avoided. It is essential, he believes, to tackle Coptic issues from a national perspective if sectarian conflicts are to be eschewed. Shura Council member Nabil Luqa Babawi, a vocal Coptic figure, thought the conference's timing "a clear stab in the pope's back". "I don't think a conference which brings together 60 people is going to upset a gathering of more than 5,000 celebrating the Papal throne, unless you are implying that the pope would be distressed by our absence," responds Zakhir, who also defends the invitation to Muslims to attend in the opening debate, though he quickly points out they were not present during discussions of theological questions. "The state must aver that it is a civil society and not a theocracy... Coptic concerns can be discussed in a clear, tangible, unfettered climate beneath the umbrella of nationalism." The dilemma, Zakhir believes, is cultural rather than legislative. The presence of an insidious culture of division damages the nation as a whole, he says. Among his concerns is that Coptic medical students are unofficially discouraged from specialising in gynaecology. "Examination results are reduced to prevent Christians from specialising in gynaecology," he claims. Zakhir also laments that in some respects Christians may enjoy certain freedoms that Muslims do not: "As a Christian I have the right to convert to Islam but if I was a Muslim and wanted to become a Christian I would be viewed as social deviant and pursued by the security apparatus." Like many Coptic intellectuals, Zakhir is keen on debunking the idea that the Coptic Orthodox Church, as personified by the pope, is the political representative of the Coptic community. "Traditionally a group of middle- class laymen operated as intermediaries between the church and the state. Today these intermediaries are non-existent, which makes the possibility of a confrontation between the church and state more likely, as happened when Pope Shenouda was placed under house arrest in 1980." Zakhir goes on to suggest that Copts have reacted to Islamist movements by turning towards the church and withdrawing from the public arena. "This has made life easier for the government since instead of dealing with a community it has to deal with just one individual, the pope. And that is a situation that leads to the kind of political bargaining and other considerations that might not befit a spiritual leader." According to Zakhir there has been more emphasis in church teachings on the spiritual rewards of the afterlife rather than the amelioration of social problems and this, in turn, has discouraged Christians from serving civil society or taking on a more effective political role. Yet "Jesus Christ paid taxes, he was a sociable individual who prioritised giving joy to those around him." "Who can best represent the Coptic Community if not Pope Shenouda?" asked Anba Basanti, diocesan bishop of Helwan and Masara. The conference's recommendations, which include the regulation of church tribunals, clarifying the Denominational Council's role and a more systematic circulation of power within the clergy's higher ranks, are hardly new ideas, according to Basanti. "Has the pope ever prevented any Coptic politician from expressing his views?" he asks. "But at the end of the day, the government understands the weight of the individual it is addressing." "We welcome the conference's reflections and ask them to send us a copy of their findings to the Holy Synod," says Basanti, who is nonetheless critical of the presence of Muslims at a conference discussing internal Coptic issues as, he says, he would be of Christians participating in debates of Islamic theology. On the issue of Coptic integration into the political sphere, Basanti believes the church is doing everything it can. "Do they expect me to tell priests to ask their parishioners every Sunday to assume a more active political role?" Basanti cites the recent clashes in Alexandria that took place after a series of stabbing in three churches on the same day as an example of the difficult situation within which the church must operate. "When these things happen, we are vocal in highlighting culpability on all levels. Whether we like it or not, we have a leading role in the Coptic community." Coptic political writer and activist, Gamal Asaad, was not invited to the conference. "I believe it was an attempt by Zakhir to propitiate members of the Holy Synod who were attending the conference. But the fact remains that I've been discussing the kind of issues they debated for more than 10 years now," he says. Asaad does, however, agree with Zakhir that it is in the long-term interests of the church to remain outside the political realm. "When the church intervenes to solve a problem, the problem loses any national identity and automatically becomes a Coptic problem rather than an Egyptian one," he says.
