Book Review: Motherland Lost - The crisis facing Christians in Egypt | CatholicHerald.co.uk

Motherland Lost
by Samuel Tadros
Stanford
£14.86

Writing in the late 1960s, Aziz Atiya begins his magisterial account of the Coptic Church, in A History of Eastern Christianity with this reassuring assertion: “In our day, the Copts live everywhere side by side with their Muslim neighbours without discrimination, either political or racial; they enjoy their religious freedom, and their churches increase throughout Egypt. In sum, the Copts have survived as a religious entity, otherwise completely integrated within the body politic of the Egyptian nation, sharing the privileges and responsibilities of all citizens irrespective of faith or creed.”

Just to read these words is to blink with disbelief. The Coptic Church in Egypt today enjoys no such standing. Rather, it is the victim of sustained and systematic persecution. In August of this year, the Muslim Brotherhood, ousted from power by the Egyptian army, launched the most destructive attacks on Church property seen for centuries. In a matter of days, 40 churches and monasteries were destroyed. The attacks continue, albeit at lower intensity, especially in Upper Egypt.

How could it have happened? The author of Motherland Lost: The Egyptian and Coptic Quest for Modernity, like Atiya, is a Copt. The glories of the Coptic Church are poorly appreciated in the West.
The critical importance of Alexandria as a centre of Christian thought and catechesis, the scale of Coptic missionary work especially in Africa, the bloody witness of the Coptic martyrs and the riches of Coptic culture still all too often pass us by. When Atiya wrote his optimistic assessment, the Coptic Church was already in the throes of a great revival. It was largely the fruit of the so-called Sunday School Movement and of a highly dynamic monasticism.

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The crisis facing Christians in Egypt | CatholicHerald.co.uk