CAIRO: The Coptic Orthodox church held a four-day conference in Saint Mina Monastery near Alexandria on Dec. 2 to discuss church affairs, Bishop Armia, assistant to Pope Shenouda III, told Daily News Egypt, but refused to comment or give more details. However, according to a source who preferred to remain anonymous, the conference discussed the thorny issue of conversion from Christianity to Islam, especially among underage girls. It was attended by 300 priests and secular servants. Among them were, Bishop Bishoy, the Secretary-General of the Holy Synod and Bishop Bakhomios of Beheira, responsible for the church's Advice and Guidance Committee (AGC). During the conference, priests presented cases of girls who had converted to Islam but were converted back by the church, as well as cases where the church failed to reinstate them. The Ministry of Interior had canceled AGC sessions in 2005 after the case of Wafaa Costantin, the wife of a Coptic priest who sparked protests after she converted to Islam, leading national security agents to hide her for her protection, a move that further infuriated Copts. One of the conference's resolutions is to demand that the government lift its injunction against the guidance committee. According to Ramsis Al-Naggar, a legal consultant for the church, the AGC used to provide guidance to girls who wanted to convert to Islam. That way, he said, families would be assured that should their girls choose to stray and convert to another faith, all parties would know that they were not coerced but had converted with their own free will. Now that the AGC has been canceled, speculation and rumors are often triggered when Coptic girls leave home, because it is not known if they were kidnapped and forced to convert. After the conference, the church also decided to establish a database encompassing all cases of those who converted from Christianity - even those that went unreported to the church by the police. Raising awareness among the youth about the Christian faith was also among the conference's resolutions. The church further plans to compile a list of all the laws that it regards as conflicting with citizenship principles that were added to the constitution this year, specifically those relevant to the issue of conversion and freedom of faith. It plans to file a case in the administrative court against the Ministry of Interior for not applying article 135 of the Notary Public by-laws, which stipulates the involvement of the AGC should anyone decide to convert from Christianity.
