Head of information council of the Anglican Church, Dr. pastor "Akram Lamee”, told “Coptic united”, that he has not been invited to visit the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) yesterday in their headquarters in Moqattam, because his opinion is known that it is impossible for him to go and meet with Muslim Brotherhood. “We always preach not to mix between religion and politics, and that the communication with all powers must be through associations or legal political entities. It is so weird of the Evangelical Church to meet with the MB who are illegal group till now”. He also said that Evangelical Church respects Al-Azhar Al-Sharif as the legal representative of the moderate Islam. Al-Azhar, on the long run, with its sheikhs and great history, has kept the balance in the Egypt for Christians and the Jews before. It fought against extremism of Islamic groups and the Muslim Brotherhood. Lamee explained that the MB harvested a majority in the parliament, not because they made the revolution, but they used it, due the lack of awareness of revolution makers, the youth, and the religiosity of Egyptian people during the last forty years. He added: “If we suffer from a decline in the Egyptian society, the church should keep away from sinking in such dirty water as it did in Eastern Europe for 70 years under communist rule”. He comments on the say the visit was only religious and not political saying: “This is not an excuse; we kept our good relations with Al-Azhar dozens of years ago. Lamee refused the say that the visit was to the group that will govern in the future, and refused to have a dialogue with those who refuse any jurisdiction of a non-Muslim over a Muslim. He said we need to have a dialogue about Al-Azhar document, which calls for human rights.
Ikram Lamee: The visit of the Evangelical Church delegation to an illegal group is so weird!
By-Emad Thomas
Top Stories
00:03
Friday ,02 March 2012
Head of information council of the Anglican Church expressed his surprise of the Church's sitation towards Dr. "Rafiq Habib”, wondering: What’s the reason behind choosing “Habib” in the delegation and to be the coordinator of the visit?!
Lamee added: He who has beliefs should be willing to sacrifice for it and we should not change under any circumstances, and he expressed his fears to lose the young people of the revolution who opened up to the Evangelical Church and appreciated its role during the revolution. Lamee concluded saying that the delegation did not represent the Evangelical Synod, and each of them has participated personaly and not as a representative of the Evangelical Synod.
On the other hand, Rev. "Eid Salah", a member of the delegation who visited the MB headquarters, said that the visit was on behalf of the Evangelical sect and not the Evangelical Synod, and there are communications with Al-Azhar through "Bait Alaila" or “Family House” and commenting that the MB believes that "No jurisdiction of a non-Muslim over a Muslim", that it is a point of view, but there are other ones in other Muslim countries, that gives the general mandate for women such as Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan.”When we went, we knew we were going to the MB, so we don’t want to change their convictions, but can try establishing a common ground.
What is worth mentioning that the joint statement signed by the parties, including signatures of some of the priests as belonging to the Evangelical Synod pastor, such as "Nadi Labib," Head of Cairo Evangelical Synod, and Rev. "Refaat Fathi", secretary of the Nile Evangelical Synod.
