Presenting the work of the Center for Arab-West Understanding in St. John’s Church, Maadi

St. John’s Episcopal Church is organizing a Celebrate Maadi event on September 12, 17.00 – 21.00 hrs

Sharia Port Said/Intersection Road 17

Maadi - Cairo 

With this event, that is open to all, the St. John’s Church welcomes new expatriates who have come to Egypt. Cornelis Hulsman was asked to speak about the church in Egypt and in particular the Holy Family tradition. He is inviting people to sign up for a three day tour to locations in Upper Egypt.

Word of Cornelis Hulsman for St. John’s Church:

Welcome to St. John’s Church. It is my wish to see you also to get to know the indigenous churches of Egypt that boast a heritage to goes back to the Flight to Egypt according to Matthew 2 and the preaching of St. Mark in the first century.

When I first came to Egypt in 1976 I was fascinated by Egypt’s pharaonic heritage but I knew nothing of Egypt’s Christian heritage. I went for worship to the All Saints Cathedral in Zamalek and through the Episcopal Church here became acquainted with Egypt’s Christian heritage.

I traveled around the country, visited Christian development projects and heard of locations the Holy Family had visited. I also read of persecution of Christians in the West and started investigating these stories, only to discover that reality is much more filled with shades of gray than what media often want us to believe.

Christians in Egypt perhaps make up around 6 percent of the Egyptian population. With a population of 90 million that gives you a Christian population of around 5,5 million Christians which is the largest Christian community in any Arab country. The number of Christians in Egypt is disputed. Prominent Western scholars with a background in statistics base their work on the figures of the CAPMAS, Egypt’s statistical office since they believe that their error of margin is small. The problem with the higher figures one hears is that one never gets to see detailed statistics with a description of the method of data collection that could be verified.

Directly related to higher numbers are the claims of persecution and discrimination. I am not claiming that there are no problems but one needs to be extreme cautious with claims that are made because so often other motivations play a role; ideological/political, cultural (i.e. honor and shame) and thus each individual claim needs to be checked.

Important to know about Egypt’s Christians is that they are a so-called non-stratified minority. That is one finds Christians among the very poor, middle class and rich businessmen. That is key to understanding Christianity in Egypt because Egypt is very class oriented and many of the problems experienced by Christians are related to the social class they belong to.  

The largest Christian church in Egypt is the Coptic Orthodox Church, over 90% or perhaps even 95% of Egypt’s Christians belong to this church. Catholics and various protestant denominations make up the remaining 5 to 10%. The Protestant and Catholic churches may be small but they are very influential due to many Christian schools they manage and their work in development.

An excellent way of getting to know the church in Egypt and seeing how they live with their Muslim neighbors is by following the trail of the Holy Family. Matthew 2 reads:

“ When they [that is the magi or the three wise  men] had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream.“Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” They stayed here until the death of Herod. Mattthew explains that this was in fulfillment of the prophecy of Hosea: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

Matthew does not mention what parts of Egypt were visited. That tradition referring to specific locations only develops after Egypt has become an in majority Christian country in the 4th century. The tradition that develops is closely linked to the history of the church in Egypt. Parts of this tradition are pre-Islamic and other parts developed under Muslim rule. The tradition of the Holy Family is therefore extremely rich and an excellent opportunity to get to know the Egyptian church as well as how local Christians and Muslims cooperate.

For this cooperation I would like to highlight the work of the Beit al-Eila, in translation this means House of the Family since both Egyptian Muslims and Christians belong to one Egyptian family. The Beit al-Eila is the place where Muslims and Christians meet en where activities of mutual interest are carried out.

Father Michael Dobson, rector of St. John's Church, suggested that we would organize a Holy Family pilgrimage to locations in Upper Egypt. Local churches would highly welcome this. We would of course visit Qufada, a small village with a very dynamic Orthodox priest who is a great local relation builder. We could visit Gebel el-Teir with a 4th century church and a marvelous view of the Nile. We could visit the Monastery of Muharraq where the Holy Family has stayed for half a year and of course Assiut where Christian Emad Awny is running for the coming Parliamentary elections.

A visit to all these locations would need three days. If you are interested please email us and we will provide you with more information as well as the proposed date for a visit.

Please visit the table with information about Qufada and the table for volunteering with the Center for Arab-West Understanding, our Egyptian NGO that works on dialogue and understanding between Muslims and Christians, the West and Egypt. We are a very small NGO that is primarily working with volunteers. Please join us and through this help us build bridges between people of different cultures and faiths.

Cornelis Hulsman,

Deputy Chairman Center for Arab-West Understanding

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