Registered vestments

Nader Habib reports on the debate about registering priestly vestments

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"The problems of the Coptic community of Egypt have to be solved through legal and constitutional authorities," Georgette Qellini, member of the People's Assembly and a prominent Coptic politician, told the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Yom. She suggested drafting a parliamentary bill to register the attire of Coptic clergy. She stressed that only ordained and officially registered clergymen should be allowed to wear it.

Coptic Pope Shenouda III concurred. He had said so on many occasions, in order to ensure that unregistered clergymen do not wear it -- men such as the notorious Max Michel, the lay name of Maximus I who recently set up a splinter church.

Hani Aziz, consultant of the committee of exterior affairs at the People's Assembly, agreed with Qellini's suggestion, but he regrets that some administrative authorities tend not to take a positive attitude towards such proposals, which are generally shelved. "We as Copts will persist in demanding our rights, even if it takes long time," Aziz told Al-Ahram Weekly.

The proposed draft bill is also supported by Mona Makram Ebeid, a former member of the People's Assembly and now a leading Coptic opposition figure, who said that it is time to debate all problems on hold, attempting to solve imperative issues concerning Copts. Ebeid asserted that Coptic concerns are not new to Egyptian society; in 1973, Gamal El-Oteifi presented an excellent report issued by the investigating committee on the sectarian events of Al-Khanka Church at that time, but the report was also shelved. "Why are all useful investigations and researches always frozen?" Ebeid wondered.

Rouphael Boulos, a senior lawyer before the court of cassation, insists that Coptic problems are not irrelevant as some people think, but suggests that the People's Assembly has a tight schedule that requires prioritising issues. These days, there are urgent topics such as taxes, insurances and many political issues -- Coptic problems are not top priorities. Boulos added, "We cannot say that Coptic issues are not important. For instance, when the problem of the two Christian girls [who had disappeared, after which it was disclosed that they had converted to Islam] was broadcast on satellite channels, President Hosni Mubarak solved the problem through a phone call to the Interior Ministry, and the problem was solved within 48 hours".

"As to the suggestion in and of itself", said Boulos, "it is important for both Muslims and Christians to guarantee discipline in the society. Action should be taken quickly. Unregistered vestments make for great confusion, especially for Copts."

Barsoum Nabih, administrative manager of a pharmaceutical company and a deacon at Angel Raphael Church, Maadi, Cairo, praised the Sheikh of Al-Azhar who cooperated with the Egyptian Church over the issue of the defrocked monk, who was acting in the name of religion. At that time, he adds, unregistered clergy wearing priestly vestments posed a risk to the community, as well as to society at large.

In his opinion, there is insufficient governmental attention to Coptic issues, which merit and require open and fair discussion for the sake of the stability of Egyptian society as a whole. The personal status law of the 1980s, he elaborates, is still gathering dust in the drawers of the People's Assembly.

Amgad Farah, an accountant at a bookshop that specialises in selling religious books and Coptic clerical clothes, said that clerical clothes are sacred garments whose specifications are outlined in the Bible and that cannot be worn except by those who have been ordained by the Church. The importance of registering the clerical attire is avoiding impostors posing as priests, says Farah, who cites the plot of a 1990s film, Harb Al-Farawla (Strawberry War), where characters disguised in the attire of clergymen and monks try to rob a bank.

Victor Younan, a manager of another bookshop selling clerical clothes and books, said that sellers cannot prevent anyone from buying clergymen's clothes. "Until the government takes action to protect us from people who falsely pose as clergy," Farah concluded, "I want to warn everyone not to receive any clergyman or sheikh whom they do not know".