Arab West Report Egyptian press summaries and media research for dialogue

The Coptic Orthodox

Church’s decision

to defrock two priests from al-Jīza parish raised many questions over the reasons for

the defrockings and

the difference between it and condemnation and the issue of whether a defrocked priest

may express penitence and

return to the church, wrote Mona al-Mallākh in a two-page feature in al-

Musawwar magazine of May 26,

2006.

Counselor Najīb Jibrā’īl, the head of the Egyptian

Union of Human Rights,

said defrocking involves three measures: informing a defrocked priest of the decision

to strip him of his

ecclesiastical capacity, informing the congregation of that measure and having a

defrocked priest not acting in his

capacity as a clergyman.

Defrocking is the legal right of the

religious authority that granted the priest

his religious position, said Jibrā’īl, adding that a

defrocked priest may resort to the

judiciary to contest the decision, but that the Egyptian Court of

Cassation has settled that no judicial power may

interfere in the affairs of a religious

authority.

He said that there are not many defrocked priests

compared to the total number of priests

and monks in Egypt; in the last five years, not more that 50 clergymen have

been defrocked out of nearly

3,000 clergymen.

Defrocking is a punishment for ethical excesses or heresy and

it is preceded by

other punishments, such as rebuke, fasting and praying, said Jibrā’īl, citing

the case of deceased

priest Ibrāhīm ‘Abd al-Sayyīd, who spent a whole year at a

monastery in Upper Egypt

and then returned to the church after he expressed repentance.

A defrocked priest

returns to his

earlier layman life and practices church rituals like any other ordinary Christian, he

said.

Hilmī ‘Āzir, the former media advisor for Pope Shenouda III, the patriarch

of

the See of Saint Mark, said that the most famous case of defrocking was the one against monk Armānius

al-

Barāmusī who 40 years ago wrote a letter addressing the then Israeli President David Ben-Gurion

and

attributed it to Pope Kiryllos VI and then handed copies of this letter out in mosques to spark sedition

between

Muslims and Copts.

Mamdouh Nakhla, a Coptic lawyer and head of al-Kalima human rights

organization, said he

supports the defrocking decisions taken against the two priests in the al-Jīza

parish because they committed

crimes punishable by both the canon and civil laws.

The two priests

were charged with financial violations,

seizure of bank checks in foreign currency and marrying Christians

against church rules, explained

Nakhla.

He said defrocked priests should not wear their priestly

attire, referring to demands to bring

defrocked priests who still wear their priestly attire to court on the

grounds that they have committed acts

renounced by Christianity.

* Similar articles were published by

Ākhir Sāca magazine, May 24,

2006 (pp. 62-63) and al-Maydān newspaper, May 25, 2006 (p. 5)