Challenges for the Pope in Egypt

On Friday, a truly historic meeting of Christian leaders will take place in Cairo. Pope Francis will arrive at the AlAzhar mosque and university — the leading centre of theology in the Sunni Muslim world — accompanied by Bartholomew, Patriarch of Constantinople.

That the leaders of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches meet is not itself big news, as they meet from time to time in Rome and in Constantinople (Istanbul). Francis and Bartholomew are especially close, making joint trips to Jerusalem in 2014 and last year to the Greek island of Lesbos, where refugees are landing in great numbers.

But it is enormously significant that Rome and Constantinople are meeting in Cairo at a conference hosted by the Ahmed el-Tayeb, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar. They arrive just weeks after The Islamic State attempted to assassinate Pope Tawadros II, the leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt, the largest Christian Church in the Middle East by population. The Palm Sunday bombings did not claim Tawadros, but killed more than 40 of his flock. More recently, ISIL attacked the historic St. Catherine’s monastery in the Sinai, killing one security guard at one of the holiest Christian sites in the world.

Egypt’s Christians are accustomed to living under harassment and even violent persecution, so the fact the leadership of global Christianity will be standing in solidarity beside Tawadros in Egypt will provide muchneeded solace. The visit of the pope and patriarch is much more complicated, however. It presents both a political and theological challenge.

While any replacement of the Muslim Brotherhood would have improved the lot of Egypt’s Christians, Egypt’s president, General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, has gone to extraordinary lengths to show support for them. He has condemned terrorist violence against Christians, and even made the astonishing gesture of attending the Christmas Mass of Pope Tawadros.

The political challenge is that el-Sisi seized power in a coup. After the inaptly named Arab Spring toppled longtime strongman Hosni Mubarak, it was the Muslim Brotherhood under Mohammed Morsi that won elections in 2012. This alarming development in the rise of Islamic radicalism terrified Egypt’s Christian minority, roughly 10 per cent of the population.

When Morsi was toppled in turn by el-Sisi, Christians supported the return of the status quo ante, namely a military-supported leader who keeps the Muslim extremists in check.

What will the pope and patriarch say, albeit indirectly, about his regime? It is better for Christians that he is in power, but the Muslim majority also feels grieved that he seized power from the popular Muslim Brotherhood. And like Mubarak and a long tradition of secular Arab leaders — Syria’s Assad, Iraq’s Hussein — el-Sisi is rough around the edges, to put it gently, when it comes to human rights and democratic processes. Francis and Bartholomew are in a position where support for el-Sisi may be seen as favouring the rights of the Christian minority over the Muslim majority, even at the expense of democracy.

The theological challenge is less delicate but more important in the long run. ElSisi gave a landmark address in January 2015 in which he called for reform in Islam, specifically to address the cancer of religious violence — directed not only at Christians but within the house of Islam itself. It is significant that the president would recognize the need for theological reform, but it is a task that is beyond his competence.

If that call is heeded it will be largely the work of the scholars at Al-Azhar. The Grand Imam took up el-Sisi’s call for reform himself. To that end, the history of Christian theology has something to offer. Coercion in the name of faith, the role of the state in religious matters, the use of violence — all these questions have been worked out over millennia in the Christian Church.

The pope and patriarch cannot do Islamic theology, but the Christian tradition — with its lights and shadows — has discovered truths that are of universal significance. Prominent among them would be the right to religious liberty.