Arab West Report Egyptian press summaries and media research for dialogue

The author states that Bishop Bīshūy, secretary of the Holy Synod, has launched 19 documentaries on the website youtube.com in response to the novel ‘‘Azāzīl’ by Dr. Yūsuf Zaydān. In these documentaries, the bishop focuses on rectifying the fallacies of Zaydān’s novel and gives a detailed account of the Church’s history in one of the most controversial ages. Away from the content of the documentaries, the author wonders why the Church insists on responding to this literary work while it is just a novel, and not a historically written work. He calls on the Church to discuss and respond to Zaydān’s book, ‘al-Lahut al-‘Arabī’ [Arabic Theology], which is more a research book than a novel. After all, the author points out that the documentaries are a kind of intellectual confrontation, which is better than calling for takfīrand bloodshed.