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Pope Tawadros II of Alexandria, patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church, talks with Pope Francis during a private audience in the pontiff's library at the Vatican May 10. (CNS photo) Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II and Pope Francis fraternally addressed one another in an historic meeting, Friday, at the Vatican. May 10, 2013 marked the fortieth anniversary of a meeting between their predecessors, Pope Paul VI and Pope Shenouda III. This is the first time since that meeting that the Coptic Orthodox Patriarch has visited the Vatican. Blessed John Paul II also visited Pope Shenouda III in Egypt, February...

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Two popes prayed together Friday at the Vatican, one Catholic and one Orthodox, in a sign of improving ties following the election of new leaders for both churches. Pope Francis welcomed the head of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt, Pope Tawadros II, in the first such meeting at the Vatican in 40 years, saying his visit "strengthens the bonds of friendship and brotherhood" between the two churches. The Coptic and Catholic churches split in the fifth century over theocratic differences. Christians comprise about 10 percent of Egypt's population. The Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt counts...

Vatican City, May 10, 2013 / 07:06 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt met with Pope Francis at the Vatican and spoke about the urgent need for unity among Christians in the Middle East. “We must prepare our people for this very real and needed unity that we know and live, we must work quickly and seriously,” said Pope Tawadros II in May 10 remarks provided to CNA by his office. His visit to the Vatican is significant because he leades Egypt’s largest Christian Church with ten million members, as well as historic,...

Authorities in New Jersey allege a Muslim man beheaded two Coptic Christians, burying their bodies and heads and hands in separate graves near Philadelphia, bringing the horror of the persecution of Christians in Islamic nations to the United States. According to New York’s WABC-TV, the Muslim was identified as Yusuf Ibrahim, 28. He was taken into custody after the bodies were found. The report said investigators alleged Ibrahim killed the victims then severed their heads and hands, and buried the remains in the back yard of a home in Buena Vista, N.J. The report said the victims were from the...

A New York Times blogger became ensnared in controversy yesterday after asking a Weekly Standard author whether he was a Coptic Christian and if this played a factor in his reporting on anti-American and anti-Semitic activist Samira Ibrahim. Weekly Standard writer Samuel Tadros broke the story of Ibrahim’s support for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and Bulgarian bus bombing attack of 2012, resulting in the State Department’s decision to “defer” its plan to honor Ibrahim with a women’s courage award. But Times reporter Robert Mackey speculated on Twitter that Tadros’s religious background, which Mackey believed was Coptic Christian, might...

JERSEY CITY - There's a gruesome double murder mystery in New Jersey. Police say who did it's not a mystery because someone is under arrest but the mystery is why the accused killer cut of two men's heads and hands. The victims are reportedly from Jersey City, but their remains were found buried in a town southwest of Philadelphia. ... police announced an arrest. 28-year-old Yusuf Ibrahim is in custody. Investigators say Ibrahim shot and killed the victims, severed their heads and hands, and buried the remains at a Buena Vista house. Back in Jersey City, friends of the victims...

Archaeologists have discovered the ruins of a buried Christian empire in the highlands of Yemen, leading to theories that there may have once been a church in Mecca. A stone carving of a Christian figure was found in Zafar, some 581 miles south of Mecca, and is thought to have been made in the era of the Prophet Muhammad. Paul Yule, an archaeologist from Heidelberg in Germany, has dated the 5feet 7inch tall relief which shows a man with chains of jewellery, curls and spherical eyes to around 530AD. ... The figure is barefoot, which was typical of Coptic saints....

Coptic Church 1251. I have read recently that the Abyssinians belonged to the Coptic faith, the earliest sect of the Christian denominations, to which all the Christian world adhered until the rise of the Church of Rome. It is true that the Abyssinians belonged to the Coptic Church. But the rest of the statement is erroneous. Firstly, a sect is a group of dissentient people who abandon a previous position in order to set up a new form of Church. If the Coptic Church were the original Church to which the whole Christian world adhered, then it is not a...

Bishop Tawadros will be officially enthroned as Pope Tawadros II, on November 18. The announcement comes amid increased persecution, kidnappings of women and children, harassment of Christians, imprisonment, and killings that the Church has been suffering since the Muslim Brotherhood has come to power. According to Christian Post Africa, it has become increasingly difficult to get permits to build Churches or to repair old ones. Lord David Alton, co-founder of the human rights organization Jubilee Campaign told CBN that “the exodus,” of the Christian community in Egypt has been unprecedented during the past 12 months. Lord Alton went on to...

Hi all, first vanity post ever. Hopefully you will forgive me. I don’t have a blog, but wanted to put a couple things out there that I am not seeing in any articles. /tinfoil on First, does anybody at all see anything suspicious about this third rate movie coming from a Coptic Christian? Probably one of the most persecuted people in the world today. In the end we will find out this was directly from the Muslim Brotherhood. Much like they added their own cartoons in the Danish episode several years ago. It is my feeling that they approached this...

Nadia Ghaly’s cousin disappeared 40 years ago. She was introduced to a Muslim man as a young woman, subsequently vanished and resurfaced later three months pregnant wearing a hijab. She was the victim of a forced marriage. She is not alone. Coptic Christian women are routinely victimized and forcibly converted by Muslims in Egypt, Miss Ghaly says. Read more: http://times247.com/articles/22forced-conversion-egypt-s-coptic-women-face-growing-peril6#ixzz23TDcpqfE

Jihad Watch Egypt: Muslims kidnap and enslave thousands of Christian girls "Forbidden to you are your mothers and daughters, your sisters, your aunts paternal and maternal, your brother's daughters, your sister's daughters, your mothers who have given suck to you, your suckling sisters, your wives' mothers, your stepdaughters who are in your care being born of your wives you have been in to -- but if you have not yet been in to them it is no fault in you - and the spouses of your sons who are of your loins, and that you should take to you...

The monstrous Islamic persecution, oppression and slaughter of Christians, Coptic Christians, Baha’is, Chaldo-Assyrians, Ahmadis, Jews and non-Muslims throughout the Middle East, South Central Asia and other Muslim countries cannot be sanctioned. But Obama is doing just that. Obama's Muslim advisers have gone so far as to block Middle Eastern Christians' access to the White house. Now, Obama has his henchmen like Jim Webb holding up any attempts at legislation to protect and/or defend these helpless minorities in Congress. Lawmakers clash over Middle East religious minorities bill The Hill, July 12 Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) ripped into Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.)...

“Out of Egypt I called my son.” — Hosea 11:1 In the Gospel of Matthew, the advent of the Messiah is followed by an abrupt departure. Almost immediately after the Magi visit them, the Holy Family takes off forEgyptbecause Joseph has been warned in a dream that King Herod would kill the infant Jesus. The narrative then fast forwards through three-and-a-half years of exile which are terminated by yet another angel in a dream.This three year gap left by Scripture is filled in by Coptic Christian tradition.The Coptics are an orthodox branch of Christianity that split from the Church...

Washington, D.C. (February 13, 2012) – International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that eight Coptic Christian families were evicted from their homes in northern Egypt following two attacks by radical Islamists on Christian homes and businesses in late-January. The attacks were in response to an alleged affair between a Christian man and a Muslim woman. On January 27th, hundreds of Muslims, led by Salafists who adhere to the strict Wahhabi interpretation of Islam, looted and torched Christian homes and shops in Kobry el-Sharbat near Alexandria following rumors that a Christian man, Mourad Samy Guirguis, had an affair with a Muslim...

"Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued." -- Qur'an 9:29 And it may well come to that. "Yohanna Qulta, Deputy Patriarch of the Coptic Catholic Church in Egypt: If the Salafis Come to Power and Instate the Jizya Poll Tax, We Will Oppose This to the Point of Martyrdom," from MEMRI, December 10, 2011 (thanks...

For decades, Egypt's Westernised elite kept the country's growing religosity at arm's length, but a projected Islamist surge in the first post-revolution polls has driven many to think of moving abroad. Sporting the latest fashions and mingling in upmarket country clubs, Egypt's rich fear a victory for the Muslim Brotherhood and hardline Salafis in the first phase of parliamentary elections presages change ahead. "I hope they don't impose the veil and ban women from driving like in Saudi Arabia," said coquettish fifty-something Naglaa Fahmi from her gym in the leafy neighbourhood of Zamalek. In a nearby luxury hotel, Nardine --...

Hator 18, 1728 Monday, Nov 28th, 2011 Home Introduction Videos & Live Webcast Lives of Saints Theology Patrology Coptic Calendar Hymns Liturgy Sermons H. H. Pope Shenouda Arabic/English Bible Coptic Fonts Today's Readings Mobile Verse of the Day Locate a Church Share | Contact Information Church Web Site: http://saintmark.com E-mail: General Information Postal Address: 427 West Side Ave Jersey City, NJ 07304 U.S.A. Directions SACRAMENT OF THE EUCHARIST Known as : Sacrament of Holy Communion Sacrament of Thanksgiving The Lord’s Supper The Mysterious Supper Sacrament of Community The Meaning of the Eucharist The Sacrament of Communion is a Holy Sacrament...

(AINA) -- In mid-October Egyptian media published news of an altercation between Muslim and Christian students over a classroom seat at a school in Mallawi, Minya province. The altercation lead to the murder of a Christian student. The media portrayed the incident as non-sectarian. However, Copts Without Borders, a Coptic news website, refuted this version and was first to report that the Christian student was murdered because he was wearing a crucifix. "We wanted to believe the official version," said activist Mark Ebeid, "because the Coptic version was a catastrophe, as it would take persecution of Christians also to schools."...

I recently read an article that said that Christianity is the most persecuted religion in the world and nowhere more persecuted than in the middle east. Pope Benedict recently expressed concern for the persecution of Christians around the world. Coptic Christians have been repeatedly slaughtered in Egypt, both pre and post Arab Spring.  Earlier this month Egyptian forces drove over Coptic Christians in military vehicles at a rally in Cairo. ACN reports: Christians in Egypt are currently experiencing their worst time in recent centuries. This statement was made by the Coptic Orthodox Bishop Stephanos of Beba and Elfashn to the...