Archdeacon Habib Girgis is a well known name in the Coptic Orthodox Church for his great influence and he led educational renaissance in the Coptic Orthodox Church and worked hard for the ministry and offered his life for the church of God. Habib Girgis lived according the gospel of Lord Jesus Christ and his life was model for Christians in his era and till today. He was dean of the center of theology and founder of Sunday School. He also led consecration, teaching and writing in the Coptic church proving the important role of laity in the ministry.

Recently, the US congress announced decreasing in the aid introduced to Egypt, and they have used the human rights situation as main reason to reduce this aid. I m not writing this article to attack the US decision but to clarify many facts to this aid. The first fact I Want to clarify that many writers and politicians in Egypt trying to attack us as because of this decision but I want to remind them with this famous proverb that says” beggars can t choose”, and I m sorry to choose that word “ beggars”, I just used it to clarify my point but didn t mean Egypt at all.

As Egypt is looking for better future hoping that the best is yet to come, some senior officials insist on keeping retardation as pure Egyptian slogan. Governor of Minya supported the prevention of Copts in Forn village from praying claiming that the majority of Muslims refuse it! This governor indeed doesn t realize he lives in the year 2017 where his statements were published minutes later before the whole world. Such statements can have very bad impact on the image of Egypt abroad and on tourism industry as well. This reminded me of The Little Prince, Frank Vercauteren, the Belgian football manager who agreed to train the famous Egyptian team Zamalek, but declined in the last minute after hearing horrible stories about prosecution of Copts in Egypt according to the president of Zamalek Mortada Mansour.

Sectarian discrimination is one of the greatest threats in Egypt, especially in Upper Egypt where it is supported by germs of discrimination and religious arrogance of extremists. Graduates of Al-Azhar in Egypt share such ideology with ISIS and Wahbbism as well. Those extremists are teaching the simple people how to hate Christians and to refuse to allow them pray! Of course they don t care the Copts are praying for Egypt, its people, police, army and prosperity. They only care that those simple will be transferred into community of Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (and prayers of the Copts)!

The Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-century Maritime Silk Road, also known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a development strategy proposed by China s paramount leader Xi Jinping that focuses on connectivity and Cooperation between Eurasian countries, primarily the People s Republic of China (PRC), the land-based Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) and the oceangoing Maritime Silk Road (MSR). The strategy underlines China s push to take a larger role in global affairs, and the desire to coordinate manufacturing capacity with other countries in areas such as steel manufacturing. Ashraf Naguib, CEO of the Asian-Egyptian Association, said that the Silk Road Economic Belt will bring investments to Egypt worth a trillion dollars in ten years, about $ 40 billion annually.

Al-Azhar has issued a statement to reject the Tunisian President call to give equal inheritance and rights for women against the Islamic Shari that oppress women in the matter of inheritance and getting married to non-Muslim men. This statement was no different from other statement of ISIS that calls to apply Islamic Sharia against human rights and even by killing innocent people. It was also very similar to the prevention of Copts from praying claiming they have not obtained the due permits, which can be classified as oppression and a included under the category of crimes against humanity (in accordance with article 7 of the ICC Statute).

Lately, I have read many news about Invitations to amend the constitution and especially amending the period of the president in the constitution to be six years each period instead of four and to allow him to candidate himself three times instead of two. As always and because of the current situation which is the media that support the president dominates the scene, No one can object that danger step from happening. When I say danger step I m not proclaiming that because of the 2 years more that will be in each period but because I m sure that this amendment will be just the beginning of many amendments in the future.

Last week I talked about the International media reporting the visit of the reality star Kourtney Kardashian to Egypt, and today I want to put a spot light on the promising numbers of the Egyptian economy published on Tuesday by the American financial company Bloomberg. The report said that Egypt’s tourism revenues rose to $1.5 billion in the fourth quarter of 2017, up from $510 million in the same period a year ago. It added that full-year receipts rose 16 percent to $4.4 billion. Remittances grew 9 percent to $4.8 billion in the fourth quarter, and rose two percent to $17.4 billion for the year.

The terrorist attacks in Europe reached 124 attacks from 2014 to 2017, which led to the death and injury of 211 people. This raises questions about the power and influence of terrorist organizations and especially ISIS in Europe where the most powerful security agencies are working. Do we deal with a situation of security or civilization? Last Wednesday, six French soldiers have been injured after a car slammed into them before speeding off in a suspected terror attack in Paris. This came days after a failure stab to kill attempt in France as well as several terrorist attacks in France killing dozens of people including children.

Bread, Freedom and Social justice was the slogan of the revolution of January 25. The people demanded their basic needs as human being which sounded fair and square at that time. However, the revolutionists didn’t realize at that time that governors of Egypt have spread false religious appearance. All those regimes since 1952 and until the regime of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013 used religion to eliminate their political opposition not knowing that this brought criminals as the new leaders of absent minded herds. Since President Nasser decided to change the destiny of Al-Azhar from a central religious place to an inclusive university that discriminates against non-Muslims by preventing them from enrolling in it. Sadat took this discrimination to the next level by supporting the fanatic groups that killed him at the end.

It may be understood to have foreign plans to kill Egyptian people by terrorists who hate Egypt and the Egyptians. However, it is very hard to understand how negligence and corruption are more lethal to the Egyptians than terrorism. The Egyptian blood has been shed on the railroad tracks for a long time, and the officials are playing the blame game with their predecessors. The minister of transportation says that developing the railway will cost 2.5 billion dollars, which is less than any of our brilliant mega projects that is being carried out by the government.

After the train accident that happened in Alexandria yesterday, there is no doubt that Egypt has to review its plan to prevent the shedding of blood on our roads. Recent statistics show that Egypt has the most road accidents in the world. Egyptians have been dying every day on the road. Even more so than Sinai, that has terrorist attacks. This is proof of the severity of the situation Egypt faces now.

International media has reported the visit of the 38-year-old reality star Kourtney Kardashian to Egypt invited by her Algerian friend Younes Bendjima. She arrived in Cairo with a group of her friends and visited historic sites like the Pyramids of Giza. They rode camels, smoke hookah, and also enjoyed the north coast’s Hacienda Bay and the beaches. Kardashian’s vacation in Egypt comes to join her other lavish vacations around the world and proves once again that Egypt is both safe and fun to visit. Moreover, her visit comes at an important time for Egypt that depends on tourism as one of its main sources of income.

This article is a call for the Egyptian government to develop the income of several institution and public transportation. The Ministry of Transport and Communications can make a contract with an international advertising agency to advertise on all public transportation buses, trains and subway. The income of these ads shall be used to maintain and develop the transportation system. The ads should be beautiful and fun to look at which will be like graffiti art in the streets. Adding to the financial resources of those institutions will be of great value to the people and to the amount of subsidy given by the government to these institutions without having to raise the price of the services. Furthermore, these contracts will increase the tax resources of Egypt. It’s worth mentioning that these advertising contracts on such facilities are applied in the majority of developed and rich countries

She was born of the righteous parents Joaquim and Hannah whom were hoping for a male child like most of the people in the East. She was presented to serve at the temple, but when she became 12 years old, she had to leave. Mary was betrothed to Joseph and was awaiting the concluding rite of marriage when she conceived her son while still a virgin by the Holy Spirit. She suffered a lot by this birth starting with Joseph doubting she was a sinner and when she suffered the hardships of traveling from Nazareth to Bethlehem to record the baby in the public census. She gave birth to the child in cowshed. Yet, she received heavenly condolences by angels who fill the cowshed.

It is a crime against Egypt and Coptic relics that made silence no longer possible. Some people who are part of the regime are full of corruption and fanaticism that they threaten the alliance of June 30 not caring about the homeland, the religion or even our history. The Monastery of Abu Al-Daraj dates back to the 4th century. It has several monuments including the well of Abu al-Daraj, which is used by the pilgrimages to Jerusalem. These monuments were documented by the Jesuit Father Maurice Martin after the discoveries of the French archeology mission in 1963 to 2005, which were published by the French Scientific Institute of Oriental Antiquities of the French Ministry of Culture.

Recently, I have read a statement from Dr. Baha Abu Shaka, Al-wafd Leader, stating that Muslims a new interpretation for the “ Quran” to be able to face the terrorism. I have tried to think a lot about this statement and I came to a conclusion that I don’t think that a new interpretation to Quran will help at all in this case. I don’t want go to more details of how new interpretation is useless and will not help. In fact, I believe that the only way to face terrorism will be through the education and create new chances and new hope to the coming generation. Egypt needs to invest in education double of what they spent in military and weapons.

Cairo University is one of the oldest and greatest universities in Egypt and its president has always been a prominent Professor. The previous president Dr. Jabber Nassar has taken some bold decision against extremism including banning the head to toe covering of women known as Niqab, and striking religion from official documents inside the university. These decisions were clearly taken to support a civil state in Egypt and cure the disease of extremism before it spreads more and more in the Egyptian body. Few hours ago, the new president of the university was named Dr. Muhammad Othman Elkhosht, professor of philosophy of religion and contemporary philosophy at Faculty of Arts. This man has called for the renewal of religious discourse, and for developing the understanding of Islam as fit to be a modern religion. At the beginning, this gave me a good impression that the man is going to support civil state in Egypt and dialogue between religions.

One of the sheikhs of Al-Azhar issued a Fatwa that saluting the Copts is a moral impurity. He cited a verse of Quran saying: O you who believe, the idolaters are surely unclean, so they shall not approach the Sacred Mosque after this year of theirs. (Al-Tawba Verse No:28). I decided to research the meaning of "moral impurity" and found that impurity is two kinds: the sensual impurity like all what was prohibited by Islamic Sharia, and moral impurity including lechery, infidelity and idolatry.

No one can deny the role of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the 1952 revolution by the free officers who belong to the Muslim Brotherhood. This revolution was used to propagate the Wahhabi ideology in Egypt by developing Al-Azhar and establishing Al-Azhar university where the study was limited to Muslims only. Moreover, the Saudi Arabia opened its doors to the Egyptian workers where they absorbed the cultural backwardness of Wahhabism and spread Hijab, Naqab, beard and jilbab. After the revolution of June 30, Egyptian government has been seeking the blessings of the clerics and worked hard to fight and resist terrorism but due to the failure of the law and the police to face terrorism the National Council to combat terrorism and extremism was established. However, the membership of the church in this council raises many questions concerning the role of the church in terrorism. I believe this membership only aims to use the approval of the church on its decisions and promote this before the whole world. Yet, this can embarrass His Holiness Pope Twadros II and the church before its congregation, especially in the Diaspora.

God has created men and women as equal human being. This emphasis the company, unity and adherence between them as the essence of humanity. Adam was created from dust and Eve was taken from his rips to be made equal to him. This equality does not cancel that both Adam and Eve had different role and function. Therefore, Christ didn t choose a woman among his disciples and messengers. Neither the apostles nor their successors have ordained women as priests. St. Peter called men to (be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life). However, women had no priestly work in the Tent of Meeting of the Old Testament.