Summary:

Pope Shenouda III is the head of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt, and it therefore goes without saying that his opinions are highly regarded and highly influential. This paper discusses the pope's reaction to a number of incidents that have been interpreted by popular media as "sectarian".

In 1998, tensions arose in the Upper Egyptian village of al-Kosheh when a number of Copts were arrested and violently interrogated in connection with a murder. Distorted media reporting and foreign demonstrations against this perceived "persecution of Christians" added fuel to the flames, and pitted Muslims and Copts in the village against each other. At the turn of the century, in 1999/2000, this poisoned atmosphere caused a minor disagreement to escalate into large-scale mob violence that left 21 Christians dead. While Pope Shenouda had insisted that the 1998 incidents were not sectarian, he could not say the same for the 1999/2000 killings, and his reaction was marked by emotion and outrage, particularly after most of the Muslims arrested in connection to the killings were acquitted or only lightly punished.

The pope took an active stance in the crisis surrounding Wafa Constantin in 2004. When this wife of a Coptic priest disappeared, rumors were spread that she had been abducted and forced to convert to Islam, as a result of which protests were staged outside the papal seat in Cairo. When these protests got out of hand and State Security was not cooperative in returning Constantin, Pope Shenouda reacted angrily. After Constantin reappeared and made clear that she had wanted to convert to Islam herself but decided to stay a Christian after discussions with clergy, the pope moved her to a monastery. He has since refused to let her appear publicly, thus fueling suspicions amongst Muslims that Constantin's return to Christianity had not been so voluntary after all.

In 2005, it was clear that Pope Shenouda found the riots that Muslims started in Alexandria after the emergence of a recording of a church play that was believed to insult Islam, an unnecessarily fierce and regrettable reaction. As he had not seen the play himself and did not deem it offensive, he refused to apologize in name of the Church. He did, however, take measures against the church responsible for producing the play in order to prevent further clashes.

During the last crisis discussed in this paper, the dispute between Abu Fana monastery and tribal "Arabs" over a piece of land, Pope Shenouda was not actually in Egypt and therefore had to rely on his representatives' reports about the informal negotiations and court case that followed the violent confrontation between the two parties. The pope initially reacted furiously at injustice he perceived in the way the authorities dealt with the issue, but he changed his tone when it turned out that he had misunderstood the legal requirements for land possession. He did continue to criticize the detention of two Copts supposedly involved in the violence, but left the case in the hands of the court, until all accusations were eventually dropped.

For each of these incidents, I will also assess whether or not Pope Shenouda's opinions were in line with those expressed by the government, popular media, Egyptian intellectuals, foreign organizations, and Copts in Egypt and in the diaspora. Finally, in my conclusion, I shall discuss how the tone and content of the pope's reactions to these incidents have differed from one case to another, but also claim that we that we can perceive consistency in his sympathy for the President and his critical attitude toward expatriate Coptic activism and inflammatory media reporting.