An advisory group to the US State Department called on Tuesday for Egypt to be put on a blacklist over religious freedom, saying that the country has failed to guarantee such freedoms and has imposed major restrictions on religious minorities. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) in its annual report asked the State Department to add Egypt to the list of “countries of particular concern," which may be subject to sanctions if they do not work to improve religious freedom.

It is the end of an era and the beginning of another for Coptic Christians in Egypt, who are now without the patriarch who has headed their church for four decades. Pope Shenouda III, whose death at the age of 88 was announced on Saturday evening, was made patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt in November 1971.

Al-Azhar Grand Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayyeb and Mohamed Badie, supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, on Wednesday visited the Coptic Orthodox Cathedral to offer their condolences for the death of Pope Shenouda III, pope of Alexandria and patriarch of the Saint Mark See. Tayyeb told church leaders that the pope was a close friend and a great pontiff who was always keen on the preservation of the Egyptian national fabric.

Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians gathered Tuesday morning at St Mark's Cathedral, in Abbassiya, Cairo for the funeral of much-loved leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church, Pope Shenouda III, who passed away Saturday. Mourners attempted to enter the cathedral grounds as prayers started at 10am, to pay their respects to the spiritual leader whose body lay in an open casket. However, many were prevented from entering the cathedral grounds, which have been shut since the early hours of Tuesday morning following an announcement by the heads of the Coptic Church that the funeral would be invite-only.

According to parliamentary sources, a campaign aimed at withdrawing confidence from the incumbent government of Egyptian Prime Minister Kamal El-Ganzouri can be expected next week. The same sources add that various Egyptian political forces are coordinating their positions in hopes of sinking the government via parliamentary channels. El-Ganzouri, the same sources note, utterly failed to win the confidence of Egyptian political parties in his last statement before parliament two weeks ago.

Mina Rizq Saad, 21, was slowly making his way out of the cathedral complex just after one o’clock this afternoon. His eye lashes were wet and eyes bloodshot from the tears he had shed upon seeing Pope Shenouda’s coffin leave the church in a white vehicle to his final resting place. “It’s a feeling of sadness you can’t imagine. The earth should feel sad, and the sky should feel joy,” said the young man, who had travelled from Beni Suef governorate that morning to attend the mass prayer at St. Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Cairo.

Thousands of mourning Coptic Orthodox Christians gathered Saturday evening at Abbassiya Cathedral in Cairo. Groups of hundreds of new comers steadily streamed towards the Orthodox cathedral from all directions, as the night progressed. Women dressed in black, young men on motorcycles, families crowded in automobiles or coming out of the nearby underground metro station and senior citizens leaning on canes or supported by grandchildren poured into the church's grounds, hoping to be in the proximity of the body of Pope Shenouda III, who had been pronounced dead at 5pm earlier in the afternoon.

Ahram Online takes a quick look back at the last ten patriarchs of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. 1. Mark VIII: 1797-1809 Mark VIII, the 108th Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church, inaugurated the cathedral in Azbakia in Cairo, which became the seat of the Coptic Pope until its transfer to Saint Mark's Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Abbaseya in 1971.

Having been pronounced dead on Saturday afternoon at 88, Pope ShenoudaIII ended an exceptionally hectic tenure that impacted Copts in many ways over more than four decades. Named Coptic pope of Alexandria on 14 November 1971, Shenouda's first ten years in charge of the Coptic papacy were the most eventful of his lengthy stint, due to disputes and disagreements with late president Anwar Sadat over domestic and foreign affairs.

Tens of thousands of mourners are gathering Tuesday in front of St Mark's Cathedral in Abbassiya, Cairo, for the funeral of the Coptic Orthodox Church's leader, Pope Shenouda III who died Saturday at the age of 88. The service is due to start at 11am as flocks of Egyptian Christians keep heading to the Cathedral. Not all the mourners, however, will be able to bid farewell and recite prayers from inside the prestigious worship house as only 4,000 invitation holders are allowed to get in.

Hundreds of thousands of mourners are expected to gather on Tuesday in front of St. Mark’s Cathedral in Abbasiya, Cairo for the funeral of the Coptic Orthodox Church’s leader, Pope Shenouda III who died Saturday at the age of 88. The service, which is due to start at 11am, will be prayers rather than a full mass, led by Bishop Bakhomious of Beheira. Bishop Bakhomious is currently heading the church for an interim period of two months, until the General Congregation Council of the Coptic Church nominates a successor.

The death of Pope Shenouda III on Saturday night struck a blow to the Coptic community in Egypt. They lost a spiritual leader and guardian who guided them for 41 years, but his passing has also sparked fears over the fate of the minority group in a country witnessing the hasty ascent of Islamic political groups to power. Hundreds of thousands of mourning Christian Copts poured into the streets surrounding the Abbasseya Cathedral on Saturday night and Sunday, to pay their last respects to Pope Shenouda as his body lies in repose for people to bid him farewell. He died after a long fight with kidney failure at the age of 89.

Church sources said today that some religious leaders have expressed the preference to delay the election of the next patriarch of the Coptic Church beyond the election of a new president for Egypt. This means that the election of the next Coptic Pope would not take place before July, if the new president is sworn into office on 1 July as scheduled.

The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria on Sunday announced that the body of Pope Shenouda III would be buried within the precincts of Egypt’s St Bishoy Monastery, in line with the late pope’s last will and testament. The monastery is situated along the Cairo-Alexandria road in northern Egypt’s Wadi Al-Natroun region. Field Marshal Mohamed Tantawi, head of Egypt’s ruling military council, announced that the armed forces had assigned a military plane to transport the pope’s body to the monastery from St Mark's Cathedral in Cairo following his funeral on Tuesday.

Thousands of mourning Coptic Orthodox Christians gathered Saturday evening at Abbassiya Cathedral in Cairo. Groups of hundreds of new comers steadily streamed towards the Orthodox cathedral from all directions, as the night progressed. Women dressed in black, young men on motorcycles, families crowded in automobiles or coming out of the nearby underground metro station and senior citizens leaning on canes or supported by grandchildren poured into the church's grounds, hoping to be in the proximity of the body of Pope Shenouda III, who had been pronounced dead at 5pm earlier in the afternoon.

Thousands of grief-stricken mourners flocked to Abbasseya Cathedral on Saturday night to pay their last respects to Coptic Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria. The mourners — traveling from governorates around Egypt and from abroad — gathered en masse waiting to get through the narrow cathedral gates. Many men showed tattoos of crosses on their wrists to be allowed swift entry. Others tried to force a line for women to enter. Amid the chaos, tempers momentarily flared, but were quickly put out.

Pope Benedict XVI released a message saying that the Catholic Church shares the pain of the Copts over Pope Shenouda III’s death on Saturday. Benedict sent a condolence message to Coptic Christians on Sunday following the death of Pope Shenouda at age 89.

"Our fate is in the hands of God. We are praying for things to go in the right direction. Of course with Pope Shenouda we were safe, because he always protected our rights and spoke for our problems. Now we don’t know what the future will bring," said Abnoub, a 28-year-old Coptic Christian.

Egypt’s ruling military council, presidential candidates and religious figures expressed sorrow and offered their respects to Pope Shenouda III, who passed away at the age of 89 on Saturday. The Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF), in a message on its Facebook page, said that it hopes that the Pope’s wishes of “preserving the unity of Egypt and the unity of its social fabric” will be achieved.

Some members of the Muslim Brotherhood and their families announced public support for presidential hopeful Abdel-Moneim Abul-Fotouh, a former leading member of the Brotherhood, despite strict orders from the group not to break ranks. The Brotherhood made a public statement on Saturday that members could risk being expelled if they voted for or endorsed a different presidential candidate to the one officially backed by the group.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party and the Salafi-led Nour Party have rejected that the detained officials of the former regime benefit from the Jama’a al-Islamiya’s proposal to grant amnesty to political prisoners convicted under the regime of ousted President Hosni Mubarak.