True fasting should be accompanied by a righteous repentance. It is devoted to the sanctification of God and takes us a step forward. Abba Joseph, Bishop of Texas, in his article Why did we fast? asks what we got after all fasts. He said that it s all about the quality and not the quantity. Mount Mokattam was moved in only three days through fasting and praying. Fasting therefore, should be accompanied by prayer, praise, love and forgiveness. The bible says: Declare a holy fast;

Yesterday the draw for the world cup 2018 resulted that Egypt will face Uruguay, Russia, and Saudi Arabia in the world cup which supposed to be held on June 2018. Many people and sportive expert started to be pessimistic about meeting Saudi Arabia and Russia especially that the tournament will be held in Russia which will make it hard in Egypt to meet Russia among their fans. Having said that, as a professional team we have to act professional and do our best and let the world respect our team through a balanced plan between attack and defense. Egyptian team has a lot of professional player which supposed to help us to play good performance and do our best to reach the next round of the tournament. In conclusion, I want all Egyptian players to raise the slogan of” Yes we can”, and to not be just a slogan but also to believe in it.

In the past I used to ask myself how the terrorist think. I tried sometime to imagine why they hate Christians and how they feel when they kill other people for just having a different faith. However, this question changed a little after the recent attack against Al-Rawda mosque in Arish in which more than 310 Muslims were killed by Muslim terrorists as they performed their prayers! I remembered that Pope Shenouda II, former Coptic Pope, used to say those who attack Copts will not stop there and will target Muslims later. This is now clear as terrorists are now attacking mosques just like they attack churches.

The cowardly terrorist attack on Friday February 24, 2017 that led to the killing of 309 and wounded 129 worshipers in Al-Rawdah mosque in Arish is far from religion. This is true since the real aim of such terrorist attacks is to fall in disputes about false interpretation of Islam. This is a conspiracy that uses religion to achieve something evil against the Egyptian people. The Egyptian television channels are keen on spreading negative information. Some people may accuse police and army of negligence. Others accuse al-Azhar of complicity. This led many Islamic scholars to benefit from the situation and claim they spread awareness and fix the situation. The truth is that several foreign agendas aim to keep the Egyptians busy in such useless discussions away from the real reason.

Sheikh Mohammed Abdul Fattah is the Imam of Al-Rouda mosque in Arish that was attacked terrorists who shot and bombed hundreds of worshippers during Friday prayers. The bomb exploded just as he started his sermon. Sheikh Mohammed was lucky to stay alive and he was saved for being surrounded by many injured people.

I write this article to declare I disagree with HG Bishop Makarios on his latest statement on accepting the baptism of Catholics and about the Protestants which included insults to these churches. Such statements contain unacceptable references to Catholics and Protestants, at the time we are in dire need to love, unity and commitment to the teachings of the Bible. The statement doesn t help the church and may be destructive to the Council of Churches of Egypt by calling for division and non-acceptance of the other. Moreover, they contradict with the ideology of His Holiness Pope Twadrous II, at the time Bishop Makarious stated he only mentioned the vision of the church. Unfortunately, he mentioned in his statement some information that are far from the faith and included accusations like the Catholic and Evangelical churches only arrived to Egypt with the British and French invasion. This has nothing to do with the faith!

First of all I want to introduce my condolence to all Egyptian on the last accident happened and killed more than 300 Egyptian and injured more than 100 innocent person in one of the most brutal terrorist attack happened against Egyptian may be in its whole history. Moreover, I want to emphasis that the whole world is sympathize with Egyptian against this Berber attack that we were only seeing it in Iraq but not in Egypt.

Every now and then, fanatic voices appear in media to call Christians infidels and cause tension as well as religious dispute. People s reactions vary between supporting and denouncing, but both parties usually reach nothing at the end but tired throats. Soon, the dispute comes to an end, even with some casualties, before it rises later by another fanatic. However, fanatics learned recently to use the brand new slogan: Christians are partners in the homeland. They do this right before they start cursing those partners and inciting against them. They realize that calling someone an infidel is a permission to many simple people with no or low education to attack those enemies of God. They also know that Egypt is full of those simple people including more than 14 million illiterate Egyptians.

Power does not mean violence since violence only expresses weakness, while power means having true and unshakeable faith emanating from strong love supported with tolerance, patience and powerful prayer. HG Bishop Benjamin in his article The Concept of Power told us about the meaning of power and its most important images. He explained that Power means victory over sin, seeking virtues and adherence to the right. Power appears in several images, the most important of which is Love. This means giving and sacrifice even one s life for the others justly like Jesus Christ and martyrs did. for love is as strong as death.. Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away. (Song of Songs 8)

It was not a good surprised to watch the interview between the Egyptian media reporter Imad Adeeb and the Libyan terrorist Abdel Rahim Mohammed Abdullah Al-Massmari, who killed Egyptian people. The terrorist explained that Prophet Mohammed killed his uncles, and therefore, he doesn t feel bad for killing those infidels! This story made Brigadier General Khalid Okasha, security expert, say that the terrorist organization benefited a lot from this interview. I wonder how come media reporter and a decent television network takes such decision. What are the morals related to such decision?

No one succeeded is a banner that was hanged on the doors of private schools in the sixties, where private schools were the solution and refuge for those with low grades. At that time, our government schools were an example of success unlike its current really bad situation. I remember this frustrating sign while remembering the following scenes: Scene 1: President Sadat confessing he left the extremists tampering with the future and capabilities of the country. He announced in a famous speech the arrest of Christian and Islamic leaders including Pope Shenouda III which was received by a hysterical and joyful round of applauds by members of the Parliament.

The biggest thing has captured my thinking lately is what will happen after the president Sis finish his 2 terms as president? As you can see I already assumed that President Sisi would be in power for a second term because I don t have any doubt about that. In fact, When I ask this question this doesn t mean that Egypt doesn t have anyone can be president but because as we can see that the political life is dead and we can see no one that he can shoulder the responsibility in this hard condition that Egypt has.

In fairy tales we usually hear about good or bad people. However, it became really hard to make such differentiation or classification in the real life because good people do bad things and bad people do good things. People are not angels or devils, as they are simply human being. This fact forces us sometime to revise all the facts that we take for granted and to reconsider all the people and things in our safe zone.

I did not understand the logic of those who wanted to assure that Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri decided to stay in the Saudi Arabia by his own will, since the television programs never denies or proves anything. Remember that many people are kidnapped in several countries by their governors and still vote for them. Egyptians have done so for 60 years! Mr. Hariri s appearance on television proves nothing since he is in the hands of the Saudis. If he asks for help on air, would he be safe after all? The situation would be more complicated, and the man realizes that the Saudis will show no mercy even with their dearest friends and family members.

On October 31, 2017, a Muslim immigrant from Uzbekistan named Saifullah Habibullah carried out a run over accident killing 8 Muslims and shouting Allahu Akbar ! Muslims repeat Allahu Akbar or God is great and Christians chant Glory to God as part of their prayers. Both expressions are similar and aim at glorifying God and offer him thanks. However, some people used the same expressions to spread violence and destruction. I watched a video showing members of ISIS terrorist organization selling and trading little girls while the men were hiding their faces to avoid further prosecution. The terrorists were also shouting Allahu Akbar as they bought the little girls. They were not humans as they were destroying other lives after they conducted their prayers in order to please God!

Some of our Coptic Church people have recently experienced some pitfalls, especially the youth of the Diaspora who were affected by the actions of some of their bishops and priests, who impose their control over the deacons of the Church, specifically when a new priest is appointed to their churches. In the terms of reference of churches financial and administrative committees. I wrote two articles about the regulation to select the priests and deacons council in 2013 when the Holy Synod issued regulation of the selection of the priest, which was ignored by many bishops later as they ordain general priests and assign them later to certain churches.

We live our life in this world while we are surrounded with rules and regulations, we try as much as we can to follow the rules and obey the regulation; however, sometimes we feel that some rules or regulation are unfair and needs to be reconsidered. We always need to remember that people like us make these rules and the regulation and we always need to listen to other people opinion about these rules and regulation simply because if the rules and the regulation didnt make peoples life better so we need to change it.

I have just returned from a 3 weeks journey to the Netherlands; this wonderful country where you can smell the aroma of freedom and system. However, I saw it by my Egyptian eye that sought all potential opportunities to dream for a better future for the homeland. I saw a system that respects everyone and policemen whom you don’t feel their presence until the system or the rules are broken. They respect bicycles and bicyclist above all, and I found this one of the decent means of transportation that saves both money and health! Yet, bicycles enjoy special routes and laws in order to protect the bicyclist from cars and encourage the people to ride them.

I have spoken extensively in many dialogues, meetings and articles for more than 11 years on the need to activate the General Council of the Coptic Orthodox church to carry out the financial and administrative work through elected specialists, Politicians, judges, lawyers, doctors, financiers, businessmen, accountants, etc. This should enable the clergy to serve one master just like Jesus Christ said: no one can serve two masters. The Holy Synod should be primarily concerned with the discussion of the legislative, priestly and theological situations. It should have nothing to do with financial and earthly matters. However, it is currently occupied with public relations and crises committees!