CAIRO - Pope Shenouda, the head of Egypt's ultra-conservative Coptic Orthodox Church, has strongly denied news reports accusing him of interference in the works of an ad-hoc committee that is in charge of drafting a unified personal status code for Christians and using his influence to dismiss one of its members. "Do not believe all that is written about me, because I have not interfered in the internal affairs of the committee, or trying to undermine its work", Pope Shenouda told the faithful during his weekly sermon, which he delivers every Wednesday at the St Mark's Cathedral in Cairo. He was referring to an official committee that was formed by the Minister of Justice to draft a law to Copts to divorce or remarry. Shenouda, however, reiterated that he would only accept the bill if it recognised marriage for the Copts as a religious act, which is considered one of the church's seven sacraments. "I would not accept a law that runs counter to Christian precepts," said the Pope, whose community members account for about 10 per cent of Egypt's 80 million largely Muslim population. He also denied news reports claiming that the Egyptian Coptic Church had gone into mourning and decided to cancel celebrations in protest until the completion of the planned law, which aims to govern marriage and divorce for non-Muslims. Egypt's Coptic church has long called for changes to the country's personal status laws, which say Islamic rules on marriage and divorce prevail except in cases where both husband and wife are non-Muslims and from the same sect.
