God has never said that faith will be easy, but he has mentioned the difficult conditions and expensive costs to follow him. He also invited us to calculate the maintenance. To be both believer and patriot, this has its impact on the relation between the Coptic church and nation.
At the events of Omrania in 2010, the Cairo police assaulted peaceful protesters who were seeking to protect a church under construction, and killed two of the protesters. Demonstrations erupted in front of the administrative building and 154 Coptic Christian citizens were arrested.
At that moment, the Coptic youth went out of the churches for the first time in modern history.
After the church of the saints were bombed in 2011, demonstrations erupted against Mubarak and his government. On January 25, the first Coptic man who was injured was called Mina Nagy and the first Coptic martyrs in January 28th, Mina Daniel, even before the Salafis and the Muslim Brotherhood joined the revolution against Mubarak’s regime.
The church knew nothing about those Coptic revolutions, and Pope Shenouda said that church congregation never uses violence in demonstrations. In Maspero events, youth have revolted against church leaders though many of the arrested people were ministers. Copts have participated in several demonstrations against the Muslim Brotherhood till they were overthrown from power. However, the church couldn’t develop with its youth.
In a book entitled Nectar of Martyrdom, Abba Makarious, bishop of MInya, said that 36 churches were burned and destroyed completely, 24 were partially destroyed, while 4 churches were looted. 421 properties owned by Copts were attacked in addition to dozens of Coptic people killed and injured.
Bishop Makarious said that Copts had this experience due to their faith and love to the nation. They carried no weapon to fight and the claims they stock weapons in their churches proved to be fairy tales. They even returned to their demolished churches to pray for those who attacked them according to their peaceful believe.
He added in the book that Copts were honored for their suffering after they tasted the meaning of martyrdom. Many of the Coptic activists risked their lives many times like Nader Shokry and Isaac Ibrahim. Many of them recorded the events before other media do. I remember here the researcher Ramy Kamel, Ermia Weliam, Samuel ESsam, Hany Ramssis. They offered help to the victims in several times before other organizations do.
The church has to care for those youth after their effort moved to the St. Mark festival with its several activities. There is clear separation between spiritual matters and national efforts which had a really bad effect on our Coptic youth.
