The Orthodox Church is facing many critical issues after an administrative court issued a decree that allows a fired priest to come back to work again. This decree returns him to work as a priest in the church of Al Malak Mikhael in Ayad St. in Shoubra and grants him all his back pay and benefits from the period of time he was fired.
Pope Shenouda dismissed Father Andraous Aziz because he allowed Orthodox Copts to get married a second time after they were granted judicial sentence of divorce, without permission from the Church. This led the priest to raise an appeal before the Council of State [Maglis el-Dawla] to counteract the decision of the Pope because it is an administrative decision issued by a institution. That institution has the same weight as a public figure [in front of the law].
Critical for the church are the other fired priests who were not tried in court. This ruling handed to Father Aziz might encourage many other fired priests to follow in his steps and be granted similar reprieves. This might draw the church into crisis, especially if it tries to counteract the judicial decisions. If the execution of the will of the court is blocked, the plaintiff might bring a lawsuit against the Pope. This matter leads the church to lay down a clear-cut law for ecclesiastical trials. This will make the procedure of firing priests take longer. But more critical is the awkward position it places the church in, as it refuses to disclose the reasons for firing priests in order not to distort their image before the people.
The second issue is marriage for those who have obtained civil sentences of divorce. There are religious texts that control the issue of divorce. Forty thousand Copts are denied by the church permission to remarry except in a very few cases. A great dispute has arisen because of the contradiction between the law of personal status and the laws of the Coptic Church.
The third issue is the authority of the church in defrocking priests. In the church’s view, this matter concerns its sovereignity as a religious institution. There are previous judicial rulings that see the church as a public figure and its decisions as administrative, thus able to be counteracted by the judicial administrative court. This limits the authority of the church toward its religious men.
Father Aziz said in his response that the decision to fire him is illegitimate because a court trial was not set up. He was not able to defend himself. Pope Shenouda’s defense before the administrative court requested it to rule that a clerical institute is not a public figure. However, Father Aziz’s attorney, Nargess Kamel, said that the decision of firing Father Aziz is an administrative decision. She said that the decision to fire him came because he wrote marriage contracts without permission from an [official] man of religion [in the church]. However, the [official] permission is not part of the marriage contract.
