Crossposting to the live thread.
Posted on 08/08/2013 9:24:16 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Islamists outraged by the popular coup that toppled the Mohamed Morsi government have found a target for their wrath. CBS News reports that Coptic Christians in the country have been harrassed, beaten, and killed since Morsi’s removal, and now live in fear of even greater violence which Islamists threaten on a daily basis:
It was nighttime and 10,000 Islamists were marching down the most heavily Christian street in this ancient Egyptian city, chanting “Islamic, Islamic, despite the Christians.” A half-dozen kids were spray-painting “Boycott the Christians” on walls, supervised by an adult.
While Islamists are on the defensive in Cairo following the military coup that ousted President Mohammed Morsi, in Assiut and elsewhere in Egypt’s deep south they are waging a stepped-up hate campaign, claiming the country’s Christian minority somehow engineered Morsi’s downfall. …
For the 40 percent of Assiut people who are Christian, life has changed radically. They find their apartment blocks disfigured by painted crosses with a red X painted over them. They stay at home at night. Churches have cancelled afternoon activities. Some of the wealthy have left town.
“We had never experienced the kind of persecution we suffer now. We are insulted every day,” said Nevine Kamal, a 40-year-old Christian pharmacist and mother of two teenagers. “We are angry and frustrated but we are not leaving Assiut,” she said, seated at her desk at the St. George Pharmacy on Youssry Ragheb Street. Under her desk’s glass is a poster of the Virgin Mary and on the wall is an image of St. George slaying the mythical dragon.
Copts had long kept their heads down, politically speaking, during the dictator era in Egypt. They began to become more politically active after the fall of Mubarak, as did other groups in Egypt, and opposed the power grab by Morsi. Copts only account for 10% of Egypt’s population, though, so the accusation that they drove the widespread anger and discontent with Morsi’s governance is absurd. Even so, seven Christians have been murdered over the last few weeks since the coup, and many more injured as Islamists scapegoat them for their own failures.
Speaking of failure, John McCain and Lindsay Graham will come back empty-handed from their attempt to mediate the crisis in Egypt between the military-installed government and the Muslim Brotherhood. In fact, Clarissa Ward reports that their efforts made the situation even worse:
The military probably won’t take down the camps until after Ramadan ends, as it would be political suicide to do otherwise. However, even after the religious holiday, any action will get a violent reaction, and the Copts had better be prepared for it. Kudos to CBS News for featuring this part of the crisis.
The Copts are the native Christians of Egypt , a major ethnoreligious group in Egypt and the largest Christian group there. Christianity was the religion of the vast majority from 400–800 A.D. and the majority after the Muslim conquest until the mid-10th century and remains the faith of a significant minority population.
Historically they spoke the Coptic language, a direct descendant of the Demotic Egyptian spoken in the Roman era, but it has been near-extinct and mostly limited to liturgical use since the 18th century. They now speak Arabic.
Copts in Egypt constitute the largest Christian community in the Middle East, as well as the largest religious minority in the region, accounting for an estimated 10% of the Egyptian population.
Most Copts adhere to the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria.
The remainder of around 800,000 are divided between the Coptic Catholic and various Coptic Protestant churches.
The Copts are one of the oldest Christian communities in the Middle East. Although integrated in the larger Egyptian nation, the Copts have survived as a distinct religious community forming around 10–20% of the population though estimates vary. They pride themselves on the apostolicity of the Egyptian Church whose founder was the first in an unbroken chain of patriarchs. The main body for 16 centuries has been out of communion with both the Roman Catholic Church (in Rome) and the various Eastern orthodox churches.
According to ancient tradition, Christianity was introduced to the Egyptians by Saint Mark (writer of one of the gospels) in Alexandria, shortly after the ascension of Christ and during the reign of the Roman emperor Claudius around 42 AD.
The legacy that Saint Mark left in Egypt was a considerable Christian community in Alexandria. From Alexandria, Christianity spread throughout Egypt within half a century of Saint Mark's arrival in Alexandria, as is clear from a fragment of the Gospel of John, written in Coptic, which was found in Upper Egypt and can be dated to the first half of the 2nd century, and the New Testament writings found in Oxyrhynchus, in Middle Egypt, which date around the year 200 AD. In the 2nd century, Christianity began to spread to the rural areas, and scriptures were translated into the local language, today known as the Coptic language, but known as the Egyptian language at the time.
By the beginning of the 3rd century AD, Christians constituted the majority of Egypt’s population, and the Church of Alexandria was recognized as one of Christendom's four Apostolic Sees, second in honor only to the Church of Rome. The Church of Alexandria is therefore the oldest Christian church in Africa.
And the “secularists” will make token attempts to protect the Christians but at the end of the day they’re still muslim animals who know what time of day it is.
They will get blamed anyways.
Mubarek was no friend of the Copts but at least he kept the animals away. It has been open season on the Copts and Christians everywhere in the Middle East where the ‘Arab Spring’ has flourished.
Yup.
The Islamists are going try to eradicate the Christians no matter what.
Compassionate Conservatism wants islamic in charge... as well as gays and whatever.
It is all completely disorganized.
I want to see Christian Churches suspend all the giving to save every shiftless colored in Africa and spend that money on an armed force to defend Christian populations in the Middle East.
Crossposting to the live thread.
Meanwhile our fearless leader is having the Brotherhood over for Ramadon ding dong dinner.
And though you give this network cudos for writing the story, they neglect to call the Islamic extremists they describe by their name, “the Muslim Brotherhood”, mother to all Islamic terror groups, including AlQada.
It’s high time American Christians and Jews shout out what the Brotherhood is - the modern equivalent of the NAZI Party! And thanks to Obama, its complete infiltration of the United States Government!
Not the only case where subhuman savages attack innocent people and blame them for their self-inflicted pathologies.
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