Posted on 06/09/2010 3:33:15 AM PDT by markomalley
CAIRO, June 8 (Reuters) - The head of Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Church rejected on Tuesday a court ruling that Coptic men could remarry, saying the decision was against the church's principles and reflected interference in its affairs.
A court upheld a ruling last week that two Coptic men had the right to remarry even though divorced, a move seen as undermining the church's efforts to maintain authority over Christians in Muslim-majority Egypt.
The court decision was prompted by a rare intervention by Coptic Pope Shenouda who had launched an appeal on behalf of the church to overturn a similar court ruling made in March 2008.
Shenouda and 90 other officials in Egypt's Orthodox church had signed a document against the verdict, the pope said.
(Excerpt) Read more at af.reuters.com ...
Prayers for the Coptic Church. Those folks are frequently, regularly persecuted.
If they want to remarry, looks like they will do so without the Coptic church’s blessing and probably get kicked out of the Coptic church. That’s the Egyptian government’s — and the Coptic church’s — respective prerogatives. There would be a far worse situation if the government said it did not recognize marriages that the church recognized.
That is very true.
It is difficult, at the individual level. Some Copts convert to the Eastern Orthodox Church, in order to be able to have a divorce and remarry.
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