Pope urges Coptic candidates on religious party lists to ‘reconsider’

Pope Tawadros II has requested that Coptic candidates running in the upcoming elections on religious party lists reconsider their positions.

“All Egyptians love religion, all religions. But all Egyptians, or most of them, reject ruling in the name of religion. Religion is in the heart and very precious. Imagine two people from two different countries who speak two different languages, would this [marriage] continue? It’s the same,” Tawadros II said, in a televised interview with the Coptic CTV channel.

The pope added that while religions can reconcile, they are not identical. Sometimes, he explained, religions can direct people’s choices, using the example of the Muslim Brotherhood’s time in power.

The pope’s remarks came as part of his answer to a question about the political role that the Coptic Orthodox Church is rumored to play, especially as the parliamentary elections are approaching. “The church is not a political party, so the church does not have an electoral list,” he explained, denying allegations that the church supports certain candidates.

“Personally, my name is the Pope, all Copts are my children, and the good father would never differentiate between his children,” he added.

Tawadros II’s remarks were directly linked to a group of Coptic candidates in the Salafi Nour Party, which has been continuously accused of holding sectarian positions toward religious minorities, especially Copts.

In 2014, Yasser Borhamy, head of the Salafi Dawah, the mother organization of the Nour Party, was summoned by prosecution for allegedly insulting Christianity. Lawyer Naguib Gobreal, known for his close links to the church, said Borhamy insulted Christianity when he described Easter as “an infidel Christian holiday.”

Incitement by Salafi clerics was widely attributed as a reason for an angry mob that killed four Shias in Giza in May 2013. The incitement by a Salafi sheikh in the Egyptian village of Zawyat Abu Musallam was part of a campaign by the Nour Party “warning” of the spread of Shia discourse in the country. The party members had other contentious stances, especially when they rejected to stand for the national anthem.

Nader al-Serafy, a Coptic parliamentary candidate on the Nour Party electoral list, explained to Mada Masr that the Pope was not referring to candidates who had joined the Nour Party.

“These remarks do not address us,” he explained. “He spoke about the lists that claim that they represent the church, and he also rejected religious parties, and Nour is not a religious party.”

In a previous interview with Al-Bawaba newspaper, Serafy claimed that the Pope gave Coptic candidates permission to join the Nour Party. The Pope’s recent remarks also contradict previous remarks he gave to the privately owned Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper on December 2014. When asked about whether the church would accept Copts joining Nour Party lists, the Pope said, “Everyone is free in his opinion, the church does not oppose anyone.”

“We won’t accept anyone who says that the Pope retracted his words,” Serafy said.

Serafy went on to defend the Nour Party, explaining that the party has never held any hostile positions against Copts.

“On the contrary, the Nour Party has been keen in the past four years on preventing the eruption of sectarian violence across the country, and its efforts are known and proven,” he argued.

Serafy is the founder of the Copts 38 group, which calls for reforming church marriage and divorce laws.

Many secular groups and political forces have called for the Nour Party's dissolution due to its religious background.