AFRICA/EGYPT - Patriarch Tawadros withdraws the complaint against the militants of the "38 Copts" association

Wednesday, 15 July 2015

Cairo (Agenzia Fides) - The Coptic activist Nader El Serafy, co-founder of the "Copts 38" association revealed that Coptic Orthodox Patriarch Tawadros II withdrew the complaint lodged by the Coptic Church against militants of that association who in recent days had organized an act of protest in the Coptic Cathedral, with the intent to publicize their campaign in favor of an expansion of the possibility of divorce and remarriage for the faithful of the Coptic Orthodox Church.
In early June, the same Patriarch Tawadros was forced to stop the catechesis held every Wednesday in San Marco Cathedral in Cairo, after a group of militants of "Copts 38" greeted him with shouts and slogans calling for a change in the personal status laws that also regulate the marriage law, currently being redefined. Such blatant protests had led to the complaint - now withdrawn - against activists of "Copts 38", accused of violating a place of worship with an unauthorized demonstration.
"Copts 38" is an organization of lay Copts established in 2011 to demand the restoration of canonical dispositions established by the Coptic Orthodox Church in 1938, that involved nine cases where Coptic Christians were allowed to divorce. Among the reasons for granting divorce included the abandonment on behalf of the spouse for a period of five years and incompatibility of character. In 2008, under Patriarch Shenouda III, the rules of 1938 were repealed and the possibility of divorce tolerated by the Church was reduced to cases of adultery, passage of the spouse to another Christian denomination or conversion of the spouse to Islam.
Coptic activist Nader El-Serafy, a member of the political Ghad el-Thawra party and co-founder of "Copts 38" in recent months had been at the center of controversy for having expressed his intention to stand in the forthcoming elections in the lists of the Salafi conservative Party. El-Sarafy had defended his decision - also criticized by many members of "Copts 38" - pointing out that the Coptic Church has never condemned the choice of Christians who decide to be part of the inspired Islamist Parties. The electoral law in force establishes that Coptic Christians are to be represented by at least 24 candidates in the lists of the Party that compete at a national level. (GV) (Agenzia Fides 15/07/2015)


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