Can the serenity and divinity of Mugamaa Al-Adian, Nevine El-Aref asks, be disturbed by a pub planned for the buffer precinct of Mar Girguis in Old Cairo? Early this week the conflict between businessmen Adel Iskandar, owner of a number of bazaars in Old Cairo, the priests of Old Cairo's churches and the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) reached a deadlock. Bishop Selwanss, general bishop of the Old Cairo, Manial and Fum Al-Khalig churches, has appealed to President Hosni Mubarak asking his direct intervention to prevent any harm to the Coptic churches at the Mugamaa Al-Adian (religious compound) in Old Cairo by a so-called violation of the backyard of St George's (Mar Girguis) Church by a "powerful" Coptic businessman named Adel Iskandar who is planning to build a tourist complex including a bazaar, a restaurant and a pub. In an appeal published in Al-Masry Al-Yom newspaper, Bishop Selwanss accused Iskandar of insulting, beating and even trying to kill the priests who opposed his will, as well as violating patriarchal land and carrying out massive construction work on the holy archaeological site in the face of Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) inspectors. He says the building activities have forced the discontinuance of church rituals. Gabriel Girguis, priest and head of St Sergius's church council, asks why the minister of culture and the SCA's secretary- general do not stop the aggression against the Coptic shrine? "Why don't they apply the antiquities law which stipulates the removal and demolition of any encroachment on archaeological sites?" he asks. Girguis pointed out that following a presidential decree issued last April allowing the construction of a small service building in the area behind St Sergius's Church, the SCA invented a law specifically for such small buildings. "Where are those rules now?" Girguis asks. The story broke earlier this summer when Iskandar began construction work on land that he owned behind St George's Church. Abdallah Kamil, director of the Islamic and Coptic department of the SCA, told Al-Ahram Weekly that the recent conflict between the two sides was not a new issue. He said Iskandar and the priests of the Old Cairo churches were frequently at loggerheads, and he said the problems were personal. According to Kamil, the SCA inspectors in Old Cairo had not stood back as Father Gabriel maintained, but had carried out their work efficiently. They always cared about Egypt's heritage rather than personalities, he said. He said Iskandar had not violated patriarchal land as had been spread about, but used his own property which was located behind the patriarch buffer zone. On the contrary, he said, it was the priests of the churches in Old Cairo themselves who violated the archaeological site. In 1994 and 1998 several encroachments by the bishop at St Barbara's Church were reported, and in 1997 the priest of St George's Church had established a children's playground and a cement theatre in the area devoted to the Sunday School at the church. This year a demolition order was issued for the removal of an encroachment made by Morcos Aziz, the priest of the Hanging Church, at the church entrance. This was to mention but a few, Kamil said. "Coptic monuments are part of Egypt's heritage and we always want to show them in all their glory," he maintained. Speaking to the Weekly, Iskandar said that all the accusations levelled to him were unfounded. "I am a well-known businessman so how could I act as a villain who insults, beat and tries to kill priests?" he says. "Where is the pub or disco that I want to built among the churches?" He adds that there are no archaeological structures in the area in question. On the contrary, he says, all the edifices are personally owned and are not on Egypt's heritage list. "Those priests want to place blame on me, and that's all," Iskandar says. They have also accused me of trying to change the name of the street leading to my bazaars. Is that wise? How can a person change the name of a street? I have not made any encroachments; on the contrary they are the ones who did. For example, at St Barbara's Church the priest, Sarmanious Farid Zaki, has built a huge building in the church courtyard without a building permit. A demolition order was issued more than eight years ago but was never implemented. "There was friendship and serenity between the people in Mugamaa Al-Adian before the arrival of Bishop Selwanss," Iskandar claimed. SCA Secretary-General Zahi Hawass told the Weekly that the SCA would never allow a pub at such a historical site, or any other activity that might disturb the divinity and serenity of the area. "We are the guardians of Egypt's heritage and the inspectors in Old Cairo are efficiently carrying out their supervision of this archaeological site," he said.
