April 27, 2017
The visit of Pope Francis to Egypt tomorrow and Saturday will be an important one. He will not only encounter many leaders of the country’s Muslim majority, but he will also meet with His Holiness Pope Tawadros II, the patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church. This church is by far the largest in the Middle East, and today makes up probably 10 percent of the country’s population.
The Copts are the remnant of the ancient Patriarchate of Alexandria, most of which did not accept the Christological teachings of the Council of Chalcedon in the year 451. Today the Copts and five other Eastern Churches that did not accept Chalcedon make up a family of churches that are completely independent of each other and yet in full communion. Collectively they are known as the Oriental Orthodox Churches.
The Coptic Church participates in an international dialogue between the Catholic and Oriental Orthodox Churches as a group that has been in progress since 2004. In fact, a Coptic Orthodox bishop, Metropolitan Bishoy of Damiette, is the Oriental Orthodox co-chairman of the dialogue alongside Cardinal Kurt Koch, the Catholic co-chairman. The dialogue has been a productive one, having produced two major agreed statements, and continues to meet once each year.
One of the difficulties in Catholic relations with the Coptic Orthodox Church is the Coptic practice of re-baptizing Catholics who are received into the Coptic Church. For Catholics, this is a very serious problem since the mutual recognition of baptism is the foundation of our ecumenical relationships. That’s why it will be particularly interesting to see if this question is addressed during the visit.
The Coptic Orthodox Church represents one of the most ancient Christian communities. It has held fast to the apostolic traditions which, according to tradition, were imparted by St. Mark the Evangelist when he evangelized Egypt. The Coptic Orthodox Church has also been blessed by the blood of countless martyrs for our common Christian faith. The visit of Pope Francis tomorrow will be an opportunity to express the enormous esteem the Catholic Church has for the Copts, and perhaps a new step down the path towards the restoration of the full communion we shared so many centuries ago.
Paulist Fr. Ron Roberson is associate director of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The video above is from Salt + Light Media.