Copts pray for peace in Christmas celebration
More than 3,000 worshippers attended the Christmas Eve service at St Anthony’s Orthodox Cathedral for Coptic Egyptians in Abu Dhabi yesterday, praying for peace on earth and tolerance.
Copts observe Christmas on January 7, as do most Orthodox churches.
“Our Christmas message is Jesus Christ’s message to all the world, to all the humanity over all the world,” said Father Abram Farouk, one of the cathedral’s two priests, before the service.
Government officials including Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak, the Minister of Tolerance, and the Egyptian ambassador Wael Gad attended the service.
It is estimated that up to 30,000 Egyptian Christian Copts live in the UAE.
The country’s tolerance and its religious freedom compared to the violence seen elsewhere in the region has made it a second home for Ashaia Haroun.
“I was talking to the chief of the Islamic Foundation and he said that we learn from our sheikhs and we saw that our sheikhs are open-minded,” said Mr Haroun, a committee member of the Cathedral.
“They know that if God wanted to make the whole world one religion, he could. God can. But if God allows differences in religion and faith, who are we to oppose God?”
Batroos Wajeh Atea, 26, and Corolis Samweer, 31, took a two-hour bus journey from Madinat Zayed to attend the service yesterday.
The men, who work in interior design, will spend Christmas Day today in the office but will stay with friends in Abu Dhabi overnight.
“At Christmas in Egypt people die. It is always like that,” Mr Atea. He said his church in Egypt was often closed because of violence.
Nine people were murdered on December 29 when a gunman attacked people at a household appliance shop and tried to storm a Coptic church
in Helwan, south of Cairo. Another gunman killed two Copts in Giza, Egypt on New Year’s Day.
More than 100 Christians were killed in Egypt in 2016.
“As Christians, we are dealing with the people as men of God,” said Father Abram. “So all creations, all the people anywhere, if they are attacked, it is an attack on us. We pray for all the world. Peace for all the world, peace for Egypt, for the Emirates, for all the world.”
Christmas is a time of celebration, but those who lost their lives in attacks this year were remembered during yesterday’s service.
“We have people who lost their brother, their father, their uncle. It is really very painful,” Mr Haroun said.
“There is no religion in the world that tells you to kill a person that God created. We pray. This is the only way we know. We thank God that he put us in a place in the UAE, a place that is safe and a place that is really taking care of us.”
Farouh Muhani Bakheet, 42, a driver for Etihad who has lived in the UAE for 12 years, said: “I am so happy at Christmas. Any guy at Christmas is happy.”
Mr Haroun celebrates his 40th anniversary in the UAE this week. The year he move here, the first Coptic priest arrived to serve Abu Dhabi, although a church would not be built for another seven years.
“Once we had a church, the people started multiplying,” Mr Haroun said.
A church was opened in April 2007, funded in part by Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, on land donated by the Government.
Last year, Christian churches were given the right to grant marriages, mediate and grant divorces and handle child custody and inheritance for non-Muslims as part of law reforms by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs.
Iman Ibrahim, a Canadian who works as head of admissions at the American International School, was at the church on Friday, wrapping presents for her family.
They planned to celebrate with a family party after the service ended at midnight. For children, next Friday will be the big celebration.
“For us, Christmas simply means that Jesus was born into our hearts and into our lives,” Ms Ibrahim said.