Coptic Pope Shenouda III warned of rumors spread by bloggers on the Internet that the Coptic Church would remain in an official state of mourning until the issuance of a personal-status draft law for non-Muslims.
The pope has asked members of the church’s Holy Synod to make unequivocal statements on the issue so as to avoid any misunderstanding of the church’s position on the draft law.
According to Coptic Church Media Spokesman Bishop Morkos, the sudden cancellation of the pope’s accession anniversary had nothing to do with the ongoing debate over the draft legislation.
“The pope often cancels this ceremony,” Morkos explained. “He would rather have people donate money to the poor than spend it on advertisements congratulating him.”
Coptic Church Lawyer Maged Hanna said the pope had decided to suspend the lawsuit he had planned to file against a recent Supreme Administrative Court ruling obliging the church to allow Coptic divorcees to remarry.
“The pope decided that working to amend the personal-status law was better than wasting time in court,” Hanna said.
In a related development, Shenouda held a closed meeting with representatives of all of Egypt’s official Christian denominations on Tuesday in order to forge a common position on the draft law.
Translated from the Arabic Edition.
