Egypt:New violations of human rights at the hands of clerics and jurists

          My name is Maged Mekhail, I am an Egyptian citizen, I follow the Christian Coptic Orthodox Church, and I’m a blogger and human rights activist and religious. The church I attend is the Blessed Virgin Mary in Cairo suburb of Elzaiton where I live.

          I am also a participant in the movement concerned with the restoration of the heritage of the Father Matta El Meskeen the abbot of Saint Maakar monastery in Shehat Wilderness (Wadi El-Natron) in Egypt; who was departure on June 8th 2006. I also publish his books among the congregation within the church as well as books written by George Habib Bebawy, PhD to revive the Coptic heritage and patristic teachings that characterized their books in this area where the new generation was cut off from these teachings that enlightened patristic heritage churches throughout the world. He also holds a certificate of patristic and theological studies from the center of the Orthodox patristic studies, a non-affiliated administratively to the authority of Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church, despite that they are of the same sect.

          Besides practicing and performing religious prayers and worship inside the church, I also practice several activities within the church, most important of my activities in the field of religious and spiritual education to the younger generation within the church (Sunday school). 

I do not mean to expect of the subject as if it is the inability to exercise religious freedom throughout the state, but on the contrary purpose is the inability to exercise individual freedom of thought and belief on the scope of the sons of one religion among members of the same community;  that’s because the head of the Coptic Orthodox Bishop Shenouda III, which I follow, does not support the teachings of the Father Matta El Meskeen and even fights his teachings with all he got, taking advantage of his authority of priestly patriarch and head of the sect to impose his attack on anyone who believe in the ideas or the teaching of father Matta El Meskeen and impose on his follower to stay away from them sometimes by threat and intimidation and sometimes deprivations and prevention of the performance of prayers or the exercise of Church activities; even thou Egyptian Church represented by the Holy Synod the largest legislative body in the church and chaired by the patriarch has not adopted formally any resolution authorizing the invalidity of these teachings or violates the teachings of which the Egyptian church believes in, or it is not opposed to the church’s faith. 

           The reason is that Matta El Meskeen was a mentor and spiritual father of Abba Shenouda III before he became patriarch and is the one who encouraged him on the monastic life and to enter the monastery; father Matta El Meskeen considered him his son but Abba Shenouda neglected him and star his war against him when Father Matta was elected for the office of Patriarch in order for Abba Shenouda to get it; even thou the level of priesthood in which Bishop Shenouda was in at that time-by virtue of regulations-the church does not give him the right to run for this position but allows Father Matta, however the man did not fight for this right and acceptable to live in a cell in the desert the rest of his life; all this is written in detail in his biography and personal memoirs.

Therefore, and that is most important, Bishop Shenouda is not a patriarch at all in the traditions of the church, but he stole the post of Patriarch. 

         The congregation did not held him decrees ordained as a Patriarch, instead, held only his decrees of throne and receipt of office dropping the ordination; the reason for this as I mentioned is due to the rank of priesthood that he held that does not allow him to be a valid candidate for the throne of the Patriarch; this was contrary to the church laws which require the establishment ceremony of ordination in order for the candidate to become a patriarch, but this did not happen, in a clear case of breaking all the Laws of the Church assisted by the regime of the state at that time in the November 14th ,1971. Therefore what is built on falsehood is false, and it is not difficult after Break the laws and modify it to ensure and support his critical position within elite public and keeping him as patriarch; it did not stop at this point, but extended to the point where he modified the lows of the church to give him the right to choose the next patriarch even thou the church’s laws and regulations give the right to the people - people have the right to choose their patriarch - these facts are absenting from the ecclesiastical community and the whole new generations by his assistants and the media for the church, and by himself through his statements, teachings, and sermons taking advantage of people's trust. 

             Knowing, that the Holy Synod of the Coptic Orthodox Church had previously declared in 1965 under the chairmanship of Pope Kyrillos the Sixth Patriarch of the Church at this time, this distinction books and praised the authenticity replying Anba Shenouda's claim that it was against the Orthodox faith in order to challenge and distort Fr. Matta's publishing

I have been trying to introduce and clarify all these scandals on my personal blog and explicitly criticize it into my teachings within the church and on the internet; that was the likely cause of preventing me from practicing any educational activity so I won’t be an obstacle in achieving his purposes and exposing his intentions and be the reason for the embarrassment to him. Based on his abnormal pastoral behaviors and also that he is not a true Patriarch I called for his removal from the patriarchal throne, which was another reason for kicking me out and banning me from exercising my volunteer educational activities for the youth of my church.

It was brought to priests of the church’s attention that I was doing all this and I’m  linked to the books and teachings of father Matta El Meskeen, as well as publishing all the facts about Pop Shenouda, I was prevented from continuing my educational and spiritual activity within the church of the Blessed Virgin Mary for that matter, even the officials of Sunday school by the instigation of the priests banned me from entering the facility and that to adopt the same position of their head priest Shenouda III. It should be noted that one of these priests is the nephew of the patriarch named Patros Patros Gayed and he is the eyes of the patriarch inside the church. The patriarch’s nephew had to sit with me personally and tried to negotiate and convince me to change my ideas and to absence of vision on seeing the truth about Shenouda III and to pressure on my conscience to neglect the books of father Matta El Meskeen trying to convince me it’s wrong but he was completely unable to prove that, he was only repeating arguments the President of his secular stated in a clear domination of him in determining what is right and wrong for my personal life.

         Ecclesiastical Law within our church exempt any person from these threats and give him the freedom to practice prayer and worship regardless these threats, but does not apply to support the right to engage in voluntary activities within the Church and does not interfere because there is a separation between the right to practice prayer and exercise voluntary activities. For that Anba Shenouda uses these voluntary activities as a pressure on all who differed with him in opinion, and is involved in it. 

          Despite all that, Anba Shenouda insist on breaking and violating these laws whenever he had the opportunity to do so if anyone disagrees with him even if has no ties to any activity relying on the ignorance of people on one hand and using the help of the ruling regime on the other hand, who supports all his positions against the rights of individuals and groups within the church’s society, needing his support in the forthcoming parliamentary and presidential elections, using him to pressure the Copts under the guidance of him to the nominations, which will ensure the survival of the current regime as it is, through his position and the support of the ignorance Copts as president of the Copts and thus ensure gaining popularity over a big sector within the Egyptian community as a whole.

         And with all that, I went ahead to write what had happened to me in an article on one of the websites to express about what I see from the intransigence of the Pope and it was entitled "Why call you a shepherd of you wage earner and not the shepherd," leading some lesser-known print all my views on my social page and on my blog and sending it to the nephew of the Pope and then sent it to the Pope

        In striving to suppress freedoms and violations of my personal rights through the tyranny of religious to the priesthood authorities in my church the Pope issued his orders -oral not written- banning me from receiving the holy communion and preventing me from entering the church and practice my volunteer services by the help of the church’s private security and have kicked me out against my well in front of everyone in a humiliating manner without having committed any crime other than I do not the freedom to express my opinions and my thoughts within the Church headed by Pope Shenouda III, 

         and now it has been five years since I practiced any volunteered service in my church and two years have not received the holy communion along with the years that I suffered inside the church all because of the intransigence of the clergy, headed by Prime community Pope Shenouda III and the instigation of his nephew Boutros Boutros-Gaied, reflecting on harming me morally and aching my conscience for not completing what I see responsibility rested on me for the young generation. I endure them since they were children and they are now teen agers, for they afraid I will ruin those kids’ minds convey to them father Matta’s ideas, it went even farther that they prevented me from meeting with the youth, or even to stand with them, indulging in self-conquer.

The consequent to that was the defamation and the harassment to me morally within the Church that I am against the teachings of the Gospel Just because I don’t read in the books published by the Pop and considered heretic and outside the faith among all the congregation, which had a large impact in the hearts of everyone towards me through their dealings with me and keeping their distance and even reflected negatively on the young people who I teach and educate that they also got hurt due to these acts that happen to me in front of them

Accordingly I  sent my the first letter to head of the Coptic Patriarch Shenouda III on December 22nd , 2010 asking him to stop banning me from practicing my activity and stop the harassment practices to me inside the church but have not received a response from him so far.

  About two years I was surprised as the congregation of the church who used to practice their religion inside the Cathedral of the Blessed Virgin Mary as usual every week that the cathedral was shut down without giving any reasons and to prevent worshipers from entering it.

       Shortly after closing the cathedral, a solution was created to meet this quantum ambiguity of the questions of the closure of the church, the idea of maintaining the church and the work of the graphics may take a few years the church has been completely evacuated of furniture

       And since the church is a facility of the State, it should not be closed nor prevent worshipers from going to it even under the pretext of maintenance only after acknowledging the state where it is one of the state’s facilities. With all this injustice, I had to file a formal police report number 3183 on 3/3/2011 against Fr. Boutros Boutros-Gaied (in person and as pastor of the Church of the Virgin Mary in Elzaiton) to make him open the Cathedral of the Blessed Virgin Mary immediately and resume the prayers and religious rites of the church again, and to undertake to him not to close it again for any reason whatsoever; explaining that this closure has been without support from the fact or the law (the official permits from the state) and that he had exceeded the scope of his official and personal authorities with this matter. However, he (Fr. Boutros Boutros-Gaied) ignored that report considering himself the owner of the church and not just a public employee subject to control forgetting that the church, with its recognition of the state is a person in public law that are reserved by the facility management of state facilities.

  In my attempt to understand what was happening, I tried to meet with the Board of Directors of the Church to be surprised by another disaster that there is no board of directors, and that the last board of directors of the church has been elected by the knowledge of Anba Shenouda III tens of years ago. The other big disaster is that all members of this Council may have been dead many years ago and that the Church now, and since more than ten years has no board of directors in violation of the law of the facilities management and the laws of the Church itself; there is no sergeant and the power of the church administration has dropped and reduced in one person (Boutros Boutros-Gaied) relying on his uncle Anba Shenouda III. 

  Those facts and shocking scandals prompted me to file a lawsuit Case No. 25444 before the administrative court of the State Council on 31/3/2011 requesting :

I. Open the Cathedral of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Elzaiton suburb immediately and establish the prayers and religious rites of the church again and ban Fr. Boutros Boutros-Gaied of all the administrative duties until electing new Board of Directors for the Church.

II. Compel Anba Shenouda III to hold a general assembly of the Coptic Orthodox in Elzaiton for the election of new Board of Directors for the Church.

         It was alarming that the Pope – with so much confidence as if he is above the law - giving strict orders to my father in confession (Fr. Bigol Mossad) to prevent me from practicing  prayer and receive holy communion within the church of the Virgin (communion is essential and integral part of my faith this punishment- in its cruelty as the death penalty, and this cruel punishment usually applies to those who have acts of outrageous damage the Christian faith, such as flagrant adultery, murder or the denial of Christ). When my father in confession (Fr. Bigol Mossad) objected saying to him (why? is Maged a heretic or committed adultery?) father Boutros Boutros-Gaied revolted and promised him with the strongest punishment if he violated his orders. This was during a closed meeting I was invited to by father Bishoy Fayek with all the pastors of the Church :

      1 - Father Bishoy Fayek

       2 - Father Arsanios Fathy

       3 - Father Markos Najib

       4 - Father Michael Adel

       5 - Father George Adel

         In the morning of Thursday, April 21, 2011 I went to church to attend the prayer liturgy believing that I have committed no crime to prevent me from practicing my prayers; while I was approaching the altar to receive the Holy Communion, all the names was mentioned above and led by Father Arsanios Fathy  started to stand in my way preventing me from the communion  allegedly saying that I’m deprived ,and since the date of that meeting, including the suit No. 25444 for the year 2011 before the administrative court of the State Council on 31/3/2011 all the priests complained against prevented me from practicing my religious right claiming that they have the official prevention sentence paper issued from the pop(issuance of a church requires them against me to deprive me of the spiritual and religious ritual practices inside the church)

        Fr. Bigol Mossad my father in confession, saying “the Pope said don’t pray or even come to this church ever again.” without giving me for theological or legal reasons, the only sin I committed is repeatedly demanding reform to my church in El Zeitoun, and also because I dared and directed a question to Fr. Boutros Boutros-Gaied about the fate of funds of the Church (more than 3 million Egyptian  pounds) that was spent in the work of installing new air condition systems in the main church; as an Architect, I can confirm that it is a waste of public funds to install a new air condition system in such a huge open area like the Virgin Mary church, also failure to follow engineering procedures to offer it as a bid to public, as I was educating people that there should be a Board of Directors for the Church so that we can monitor and audit their actions, that was another reason prompting them to exclude me from influence  people with awareness.

  It is perhaps also the most important reasons for the decree to stop me from communion is that I directly disclose excesses of the priests in the Church, especially the pop’s nephew Fr. Boutros Boutros-Gaied; not only that but I also reported him to pop Shenouda III, more than once and urgently, and more than one way to perhaps investigate ..., but I got nothing in return, so I published all of the above on the several web sites, which embarrassed the Pope and made him appear before his people on the look of corrupt Conniver causing him to issue a hasty decision forbidden me of the holy communion in order to preserve his pride to the people, without giving me the chance of fair trial before this people.

  And as all the international conventions and all the rules of morality even to the least urbanized nations allows a person freedom of worship as it did not issue against me this deprivation at all and since that issue needs to meet the Holy Synod (the highest committee of the church) and give me a chance to defend myself. As I have went more than asking for that deprivation decision and I did not find it, I also have not signed any paper stating the above.

  I also want to point out that this paper is dangerous- if it ever exist- represents the execution of my soul and it prevents me from entering heaven, it also represents the indulgences, which ended in the Middle Ages, and does exist now only in the sick minds. I am also afraid that the Respondents' objects my rights to get married within the church - where the law has provided for the form of religious for the marriage of Christians as required by Egyptian law - and claim that the existence of this paper prevents me from my right to get married inside the church. 

This has resulted in an incident where a –so called-  servants of the Church by the name of Peter Naim written articles attaching me on his social profile of Facebook and then was published on the Church’s blog with incitement and personal demand of Adel Magdy the admin of the Church’s blog; in which he related things meant to be harmful to my biography, stating that I deserve all the persecution I have had, adding that what happened against me was a result of my outrageous acts that causes damage to the Christian faith supporting the pop’s decision to deprive and stop me from receiving the holy communion to ease any public tension or questions from chapel to the priests. They declared an intellectual terrorism on me, prevented me from even the right of defending myself by blocking me posting my testimony on the blog.

  All of this was issued against me with no right. What kind of justice that sentence to execute innocent people and tarnish their biography and personal life without any procedures of fair trial - even if its informal - .. There is no judge to stand in front, no witnesses, and even no defense; the powers of the pope were exploited and he became the judge and the defendant, the judge and the witness and finally, is the executioner.

  There for I had submitted an official notice to the Public prosecutor of Egypt narrating what I have mentioned above and I based it on what is guaranteed to me by the Constitution and the Egyptian laws of freedom under the number 10655 \ 2011 and requested the following:

1. In accordance with Article 59 of the Egyptian Evidence Act, I demanded the invalidity of the paper mentioned above (stating that the issuance of denial by the church against me should deprive me of my rights of spiritual practice and the practice of religious ritual inside the church).

2. I also sought from his excellence to investigate of wrongdoing by Mr. pop Shenouda III and his assistants of the priests of St. Virgin Mary church in Elzaiton, and there is no Board of Directors of the church for decades and the work of projects that wasted millions in Egyptian currency, making it easier to seize public funds.

3. investigate the consequent violation of the provisions of the constitution of his assault on my freedom of establishment of ritual prayer by issuing an oral decision to deprive me from receiving the holy communion, and completely exclude me from the Church which results in exclude me from the Christian community as a whole. Prevent me from practicing any activity or right in church; such freedom that was guaranteed by the state and protected by the Constitution and the law, no one is above the Constitution and the law, I hope you would enable me to once again receive communion in my church and re-engage in the church practices and educational services like any individual of the church.

  However, the Public prosecutor transferred the case to the Attorney General and disappointed me when he gave his orders to save the case without issuing an investigation without giving any reasons, in spite of spreading the news in several electronic newspapers.

              After that I submitted a grievance carrying a number (58-2012 grievances) against the actions of the Attorney General saving my case, showing my dissatisfaction and disappointment to the policies of the Attorney General for not opening any investigation to lift the injustice that I have been suffering, although he opened many investigations about many religious disputes submitted by racist parties against Copts. That’s why I announced going in a complete hunger strike starting 02/27/2012. I blame any responsibility of any damage to my physical health caused by this strike on the Attorney General for not opening a serious investigation. Since then, I am without food, and to this day I am still on a hunger strike for not taking my case seriously and I will elevate my strike if no serious actions were taken.

Today after the death of Pope, the administration was handed over by group of bishops who are of his loyal students and who are keen not to leave the new pope comes from outside that circle, which makes it not much different than ever before, and despite the fact that the laws of our Coptic Church prevent the bishop from the candidate himself for the position of the Patriarch, which was the same thing happened with the late pope Shenouda III; the thing that I cannot accept and I try to voice out and publish on social networks which make it even harder to return to my church and practice my religious rights in the church.

             My last resolution is to ask the help of international  law ( Universal Declaration of Human Rights and International Covenants), which recognizes a range of basic human rights, where the most important of them is the individual liberty that ensure me to follow any belief or to adopt a thought I find  most useful and best suited to my beliefs and my opinions, as long as not inconsistent with the beliefs and faith of my community; putting in mind that the individual liberty begins as a reaction to the tyranny of the canon, and authority to impose humiliating burden on people. 

          Accordingly, I filed a complaint to the Commissioner for Human Rights and still waiting for a response

So I ask you, through the authorities and responsibilities of your own, contact the Egyptian Coptic Orthodox  Church to confirm my physical safety and moral integrity and conscience, stop them from banning me to exercise my basic religious rights and my educational activities in which I was banned from within the church with an order issue by them, through you .