I was glad to hear news about the ordination of a new Coptic priest for the ministry in Hong Kong, which proves the church is extending and reaching new places around the world. However, everywhere we travel around the world we can find Coptic churches, but its services are almost limited to the Coptic congregation. I believe this is about to change with the new churches and priests all over the world. The Coptic Church is a very old one and has many unique characteristics, but evangelism is not clearly one of them. This started many years ago with the persecution of the church and due to several political reasons. Yet, we should always remember the words of Jesus Christ to his disciples saying: Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Mathew 28: 19)

On 21 October I wrote an article entitled: Question to the church, government and parliament: Where is the personal status law of Christians? I talked about the importance of this law to the Christians in Egypt to allow them to follow their own legislations. This was at the beginning of the recent round of the House of representatives whose plan included the general personal status law. I wondered: where is the dedicated law for the Copts that was mentioned right after the constitution of 2014? If it is still with the church, why is it still waiting out there? If it is by the cabinet, why wasn t it sent to the Parliament? If it is by the Parliament, why it was not passed? After I published that article, I started searching for the answers. I started with the church, though it was not likely to be there; however, it was! Sources in the church told me that the law is still at the church s Court and it was not yet sent to the government, as it is still being revised by the Catholic church, before it is finally passed to the government. In fact, I couldn t understand the reasons behind such delay, which exceeded 4 years. The church is the sole beneficiary and the sole loser from that law. I hope such delay comes to an end and the law is passed soon. Moreover, I hope it will include the equality between men and women concerning the inheritance.

Coptic civilization is a great civilization that came in Egypt and left great impact on Egypt and other nations. However, this great civilization does not receive the due attention from the Egyptian state. It is surprising and even ironic that many countries are interested in the Coptic civilization and establish sections in their universities to study them, but the Egyptian state ignores it and refuse to include them in the curricula and refuse to establish dedicated sections for Coptic civilization in its universities like Pharonic and Islamic sections. An official said once in television interview that Coptic civilization belongs to Christians and we have nothing to do with it! This showed that many Egyptian officials don t consider Coptic civilization part of their own civilization.

Attacking the Cops and their churches in Egypt is still happening, and the murderer is still acquitted as well. The best way to prove the murderer not guilty is by calling him crazy. This is usually the case in most sectarian attacks. Bing crazy or psychopath is the most known way to acquit murderers of the Copts. This was the case in the very first attack by ISIS in Alexandria in 2006 when a terrorist attacked three different churches in different places and stabbed a man to death, but was acquitted in a crazy way by calling him crazy!

Every time you will meet good people and bad people, but what worse than bad and good people are the negative people. Negative people always drain your energy and let you feel bad about yourself and about others as well. Negative people not just normal people but good be also famous people, for example some consider Trump as a negative person; he doesn t leave any one without criticising him and put him down.

The recent terrorist attack at the monastery of St. Samuel in Minya was indeed a tragedy, but we still have to face it since the Copts have not learned the lesson. I am not talking about security negligence and the role of the state, but rather about the Copts who walk in the way of death ignoring such great danger and get killed at the end. Let s remember here what the holy family did when Herod persecuted the child Jesus and intended to kill the children of Bethlehem. Joseph took the boy and his mother and went to Egypt. However, he had a chance to stay and say God will protect him from being killed instead of staying in Egypt for 3 years till Herod died.

The International Federation of Physicians will visit Egypt within days to adopt the recognition of the National Authority for Quality Assurance and Accreditation, said Dr. Johansen Eid, Chairman of the body. This important news gives hope to Egyptian doctors that their Medical certificates will be recognized globally from accredited countries. This comes as the word is going to limit the certified doctors to the internationally accredited countries. Dr. Eid added that Egypt adopts an ambitious project to develop education in accordance with Vision 2030 of Egypt with the personal support of President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi.

The series of assault on the Copts continue as an extremist stormed into the Church of St. George in Ain Shams holding a white weapon and promising to kill all infidels in the church during the Sunday liturgy. Two people were injured in that attack before the defendant was arrested. I believe the extremist has a sound mind since he chose Sunday to commit his crime and knew the entrance of the church. What if he had a real weapon? We would have a number of dead people counted as martyrs! It is clear that similar attacks on Christians are increasing, but the state makes no move to prevent them except for denial and denouncing as well as offering sincere condolences! This raises questions about ability of the state to protect its citizens and when these attacks will come to an end? The key problem here is that criminals are not usually punished for what they do, and the price is always paid by the Copts, who pay the price of ignorance, illiteracy, retardation and extremism. Therefore, the state has to face such culture of extremism and try to change it.

For the second time, Egypt is terrorized by a terrorist crime witnessed near the Monastery of St. Samuel in Minya governorate. This comes after former terrorist attack at the same area last year. This time at least 7 people were killed and 15 wounded. I offer my sincere condolences to families and friends of the victims of this horrible attack and for those who were wounded. The church had to suffer twice from such attack that tests its faith and tolerance of its peaceful congregation. Patriotism is also another subject for this test. However, unity is the only way before Egypt that has to unite its people, army and government. The evil terrorism insists on targeting Egypt and its innocent people.

Lately California witnessed another shooting which killed 12-sk people and many were injured. Although more than 300 people killed this year in states from shooting gun, the government and the president couldn t do anything to stop shedding blood using weapons. One of things we can t understand so far in the American system that any election keep promises to fix the economy or adopting policy against or with immigration but we never found banning weapons as one of the promises for any election campaign.

In his weekly sermon, Pope Tawadros II described the Coptic Church as the mother of martyrs since it has already offered many of them throughout history including the very recent ones at St. Samuel monastery where terrorist shot at least 7 people dead and wounded 20. Pope said that that unity of the Egyptians is the most precious element they have and such terrorist attacks shouldn t change that. The interior minister visited Pope Tawadros after the attack to offer his condolences for the victims of the terrorist attack at St. Samuel monastery, which is the second in two years at the same area and using the same technique! Such visit was followed by similar ones including the Prime Minister and head of the Egyptian Parliament.

"We are not in conflict with the Ministry of interiors or police, but we show support and appreciate their sacrifices. However, we demand accurate and objective statements that show some respect for our minds. We demand an investigation that don t blame the victims for being killed next to St. Samuel monastery. We also expect the Minister of interiors to launch investigation at these statements and information released and to explain how those terrorists managed to repeat the same attack twice with the same vision and elements” This was a post published by the Coptic writer Kamal Zakhir on Facebook. Unfortunately, the statement of the Ministry of the Interior came up to provoke and raise the public anger since they show no respect for our minds. They claimed that the victims didn t take a permit to visit the monastery, or they have taken an insecure shortcut.

A few days ago, Swiss television broadcast a report on Egypt and its conditions under the leadership of the President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi for one hour. I was not surprised by the lack of information presented by the non-professional report, partly because of my understanding of the Western culture after living in Europe for decades. As the Western evil plans almost succeed to divide Egypt, as part of the greater plan to divide the Arab region. However, the Egyptian masses demonstrated to abolish this conspiracy. In fact, I believe the Egyptians have a civilization beyond the West s mind to control it. This raises the question of why the West is trying to destroy what we can call the awakening of Egypt after the revolution of June 30? For 40 years, I have been living in Switzerland, and this gave me an opportunity to understand the Swiss way of thinking. Swiss people believe that each country may have a different kind of civilization with a significant vision, culture and politics, but they should fail since they are different from the Swiss way! Yet, I believe that each human experience has its own vocabulary and each people has its own cultural, and we can t reject different cultures only because they are different. We should study and understand other experiences instead of rejecting them.

First of all I want to introduce my condolence to the Coptic family killed in the last terrorist attack on a Coptic bus was going to Saint Samuel Monastery. IT was the second incident in few months against the Coptic riding busses. President Sisi should fire the interior minister right away after this incident because especially that interior ministry should had its cautions by protecting this area and increasing the security around the monastery.

As Abba Antonius, Metropolitan of Jerusalem called the whole world to support the Coptic Church in claiming its right in the Coptic monastery of Deir El-Sultan in Jerusalem, many people responded by demonstrating and publishing. However, if we blame the Israeli occupation for seizing the rights of the Copts for political reasons and for attacking peaceful monks, we should also remember our Ethiopian brothers who were received as guests and were turned into occupiers over time. The Ethiopian Church was administratively part of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria from the first half of the 4th century until 1959, when it was granted its own patriarch by Cyril VI, Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, but now its monks are seizing a Coptic monastery and refusing to return it back!

Christianity has not only faced persecution when it spread all over the world by miracles, but also since its very beginning when Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem. Herod wanted him dead and therefore, he killed all children in Bethlehem. Yet, the Holy Family fled to Egypt in order to keep the child safe. Seizing houses of worship also started since the days of Jesus Christ on earth when He expelled the sellers at the temple saying that it is a place of worship but they made it a cave of thieves. Christians were also persecuted since the very beginning just like Christ was. Such persecution continued till today producing thousands of saints and martyrs and spreading Christianity throughout the world.

During the last week of October 2018, Deir al-Sultan Coptic monastery in Jerusalem witnessed protests by clergy and congregation of the Coptic Orthodox Church led to the arrest of one of the monks by the Israeli authorities. The protests came against the Israeli authorities that seized the monastery and handed it over to the Ethiopian Church. This time, the protest came against the attempts of the Israeli authorities to restore the monastery without reference to the Coptic Church, which owns the monastery. Moreover, the Israeli forces refused to give permission to the Coptic Church to restore the monastery. In fact, this was only an episode of a long series of conflict that lasted for centuries. The Coptic Church has owned the monastery for centuries. It is said that the monastery was given a gift to the Copts by Sultan Abdul Malik bin Marwan. In the twelfth century during the reign of Salah al-Din Ayyubi, who gave it back to the Copts as a reward for their devotion. Hence it was called the Monastery of the Sultan.

The bible says: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. (Matthew 5: 9). But, the world prefers today those who incite wars and hatred. among those who raise such hateful slogan is the Israeli army that prefers to seize Egyptian property from Coptic peaceful monks rather than returning their rights back. Egypt has tried to teach them how to love and accept peace after the war of 1973. However, this is not strange since they refused the master of peace, Jesus Christ. Moreover, they have already seized the Palestinian land among the mysterious silence of the world.

Whenever you try new things you always doubt yourself if you are right or wrong, some try to encourage you and some other try to warn you while others try to scare you. There is no doubt that you need to study anything new before you try it, however, in many cases you can try something without previous experience and you find out that it is successful or you praise yourself for trying it.

Forces of Israeli occupation didn t hesitate to attack a number of peaceful monks at the Coptic monastery of Deir El-Sultan in Jerusalem and arrested one of them before he was released later. The members of the Deir El-Sultan clergy had been peacefully sitting-in to protest an Israeli move to forcibly seize the monastery which is located within the walls of the Old City of East Jerusalem.. The importance of the Monastery of the Sultan to the Copts is that it is their direct route from the Monastery of St. Anthony to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. This monastery is the seat of the Egyptian Patriarchate and the Coptic Church in Jerusalem. The occupation forces took over the monastery without right and gave it to the Ethiopian Church on 25 April 1970. Ever since, the Egyptian Church has been doing its best to recover it. Ownership of the monastery has been always to the Coptic orthodox church that had all the documents to prove so, and had a decision of the high Israeli court which said that the monastery known by the locals as Deir al sultan must back to the hand of the Coptic church the soley owner of it.