Forthcoming Publication “The Great Lent” Available for Ordering

The dio­cese joy­fully announces pre-order avail­abil­ity of its forth­com­ing pub­li­ca­tion, The Great Lent, part of the pop­u­lar Trea­sures of the Fathers series.

The Great Lent is Vol­ume II of the series, and it offers read­ers a rich trea­sure of patris­tic writ­ings from St. Athana­sius, St. Cyril of Alexan­dria, St. John Chrysos­tom, St. Gre­gory Nazianzen, the Scholar Ori­gen, and many oth­ers. Also included in this vol­ume is a series of three arti­cles con­tain­ing an intro­duc­tion to the spir­i­tu­al­ity of the Great Lent, a his­tory of the Great Lent fast reflect­ing the most recent schol­ar­ship as to the ori­gins of this fast, and a gen­eral overview of its Sun­day gospel readings.

The book is avail­able from our online store today at the following link:

The Great Lent

You can review the con­tent of the book by down­load­ing a PDF of the Table of Con­tents.

Orders placed this week will ship on or before Feb­ru­ary 2 in time for Prepa­ra­tion Week of the Great Lent.

The dio­cese encour­ages every believer–and espe­cially the youth and servants–to obtain a copy of this book and use it through­out the com­ing Great Lent sea­son to enhance the spir­i­tu­al­ity and ben­e­fit of this holy fast.

Diocese Great Lent Lecture Series

The Saint Athana­sius and Saint Cyril The­o­log­i­cal Library joy­fully announces its first annual Great Lent Lec­ture series, “Fast­ing in the Desert: A His­tor­i­cal and Spir­i­tual Exam­i­na­tion of the Desert Fathers and the Applic­a­bil­ity of Their Lives Today.”

God will­ing, the Library has orga­nized a series of six lec­tures on the Sun­day evenings of the Great Lent at var­i­ous churches through­out the dio­cese, fol­low­ing the Sun­day evening prayer. The sched­ule of these lec­tures is as follows:

Feb. 14	Lec­ture: “Life of St. Antony as the Life of Vic­tory” by Father Daniel Habib at St. Mary and St. Athana­sius Cop­tic Church, Northridge
Feb. 21	Lec­ture: “St. Pachomius and the Life of Dis­ci­pline” by Father Kyril­los Ibrahim at St. John Cop­tic Church, Covina
Feb. 28	Lec­ture: “Scrip­ture in the Writ­ings of St Shenouda” by Mark Moussa at St. Mark Cop­tic Church, Los Angeles
Mar. 7	Lec­ture: “Abba, Give me a Word” by Father John Paul Abdel­sayed at St. Marina Church, Irvine
Mar. 14	Lec­ture: “St. Mac­rina and the Church at Home” by Archdea­con Moses at St. Marina Cop­tic Church, Irvine
Mar. 21	Lec­ture: “Repen­tance in the Desert” by H.G. Bishop Ser­a­pion at St. Mer­curius and St. Abraam Cop­tic Church, Torrance

All of the lec­tures are offered freely with no admis­sion fee. The dio­cese wel­comes and encour­ages every­one to attend as many of these lec­tures as possible.

We pray that the Lord may bless this lec­ture series that it may be a source of spir­i­tual nour­ish­ment and bless­ing to all who attend.

The Greatness of Church Music

Our Cop­tic Church has a very rich musi­cal her­itage, for music has its deep effect on the soul, as men­tioned before. Saint Paul said; “Speak­ing to your­selves in psalms and hymns and spir­i­tual songs, singing and mak­ing melody in your heart to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:19).

Music is used, since old, to move the believ­ers’ desires and emo­tions for pray­ing and worshipping.

When one hears a sad hymn or song, it moves the ten­der emo­tions, thus, ele­vat­ing the human feel­ings, and sub­lim­ing the human thought. This causes one to come to one’s self — wake one’s senses, and remem­ber the Lord and seek repen­tance and reform.

By the same token, the joy­ful tones-the fes­tal hymns, gives one’s soul peace and spiritual happiness.

This is the nature of the Church hymns and songs, which present spe­cial words with the­o­log­i­cal mean­ing, and spe­cific dogma, for cer­tain occasions .

Music and songs affect the believer; where the tone of music affects the intu­ition, while the mean­ing affects the mind and thoughts.

Cop­tic Hymns

The Cop­tic Ortho­dox Church has been blessed by this won­der­ful trea­sure and pre­cious gift, not only for the Church but for the whole Christendom.

We feel proud in the dif­fer­ent Ecu­meni­cal coun­cils; whether it be the Mid­dle East Coun­cil, the African, or the World Coun­cil of Churches, as all mem­bers appre­ci­ate highly our hymns and songs, which car­ries an authen­tic and true the­o­log­i­cal teachings .

It is of vital inter­est that our chil­dren and youth learn the Church hymns and the many replies of the Divine Liturgy, so they will not feel strangers in their Church.

For when they par­tic­i­pate they become part of the Liturgy, inter­act­ing with the words which have been divinely put , know­ing the Church the­ol­ogy and dogma, through the Church rites and the beau­ti­ful tones and tunes.

Com­po­si­tion of Church Hymns

The words carry a deep the­o­log­i­cal, dog­matic, and spir­i­tual mean­ings. Look­ing at the Four Can­ti­cles (Ode), the Psali’s, the Theotokia’s, give us an assur­ance that the holy Church uses it in:

• Pre­sent­ing The­ol­ogy and Dogma to the believers
• Explain­ing it in suitable words,
• Using words to give precise meanings,
• Point­ing its impor­tance for salvation,
• Com­pos­ing a tune which fits the mean­ing, recit­ing it .

As for the Dox­olo­gies, mean­ing glo­ri­fy­ing God in the life of the mar­tyrs and saints, it is to attract us to their lives, so they can be our guide, source of strength, and inter­ces­sors, through the poetic words and its tunes.

The hymns and songs of the Divine Liturgy, whether it be the Priests words or the dea­cons response along with the con­gre­ga­tion, it has its the­o­log­i­cal depth, dog­matic mean­ings, bib­li­cal evi­dences, and intu­ition ..which pre­pares the believ­ers for par­tak­ing of the Body and Blood of our Lord God and Sav­ior Jesus Christ, lead­ing us through­out the path of life into the King­dom of Heaven .. to Eternity.

As for Pas­sion Week, The Holy Pascha Week, with its rich read­ings, and expo­si­tions, it all invites us to feel sorry and be deeply sad­dened for our sins caused our Redeemer to suf­fer on our behalf. It also calls on us to have hope and rejoice for the glo­ri­ous act of Redemp­tion , which our Lord offered to us through the Cross .

As for the month of Decem­ber, bet­ter known in the Cop­tic cal­en­dar as : The Month of ‘Kiahk’, were the believ­ers stay up late in joy, were its prayers pre­pare us for the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ ‘in our hearts’, cel­e­brat­ing The Glorious Nativity.

Also the other Church events, such as; Bap­tism, Mat­ri­mony, Funer­als, etc. were the Church teaches the believ­ers the deep mean­ing of its teach­ings, along with the spir­i­tual and intu­itive effects, accordingly.

We Must be Alert

Non Eccle­si­as­tic chants and songs are super­fi­cial in the mean­ing of its words, com­pared to the rich level of the Church hymns and the Psalmody. These type of chants or songs have to be checked before publicizing it.

Those who use it and lis­ten to it have no sense for the Cop­tic music beauty, and degrade their sense of lis­ten­ing by their ears by stoop­ing low to replace a seven star music, down to a one star or even no star!

These chants and songs do not coin­cide and/or coör­di­nate with our rich; heav­enly music express­ing the­o­log­i­cal, dog­matic and musical heritage.

Using the ‘danc­ing music’ of the world, to com­pose these chants are not spir­i­tual, but fleshly, the least to say. This type of music is not to be used in the Church.

Not any one should com­pose chants and songs and deliver to the pub­lic … This type of songs have no the­o­log­i­cal or dog­matic depths in its mean­ing, beside the weak word­ing of the composure.

Uti­lize the musi­cal and vocal efforts of the youth by teach­ing them the rich and sat­is­fy­ing Cop­tic her­itage, and pre­sent­ing it in the var­i­ous occa­sions, in a spir­i­tual man­ner, and a hum­ble and edi­fy­ing way, pleas­ing the peo­ple and to give the youth satisfaction.

Prais­ing in the Coptic Church

The nature of chant­ing and prais­ing in the Cop­tic Ortho­dox Church, as deliv­ered to us from the early fathers, is by VOCAL MUSIC only, mean­ing the human voice is the source for depict­ing the Church’s rites through its Liturgy, prayers and praises. 

As Ms. Mar­garet Duke wrote in her book; The Cop­tic Church, 1978, that;

The human voice only offers glory to God.

She also said that the instru­ments stands between God and man.

The ‘cym­bals’ and the ‘trianto’ are allowed to be used in Church only to con­trol the tune.

As these instru­ments are used calmly and in a quite way, the beauty of the hymns prevail .

Some pre­fer not to use these instru­ments dur­ing Great Lent.

As for Pas­sion Week, their usage are for­bid­den, for the rev­er­ence and awe of the occasion.

Nowa­days, the Church uses the ‘cym­bals’, known in Greek as ‘Kim­valon’, while in Ara­bic they mis­taken it for ‘timbrel’.

The word ‘cym­bals’ was men­tioned in Psalm 150 twice; Praise Him with pleas­ant sound­ing cym­bals. Praise Him, upon the cym­bals of joy.

The cym­bals in the old, are huge and heavy, and causes a loud sound when used to play music con­stantly. Which proves that it was used only to con­trol and adjust the begin­ning of the chant or when needed to change tunes, to alert the chanters to har­mo­nize their voices.

They are kept in our Coptic Monasteries.

Con­clu­sion

May the good Lord grant us to “sing unto Him a new song” (Psalm 149:1), and chant with under­stand­ing, from the depth of the heart in the spirit of prayer and wor­ship. May He accept the ser­vice of prais­ing, which is for the Seraphim, from our mouths as a sweet savor before Him.

Through the inter­ces­sions of our blessed Mother of God, the holy Vir­gin Mary, and the great chief of the heav­enly hosts Archangel Michael, and our beloved Evan­ge­list St. Mark the Apos­tle, mar­tyr, and beholder-of-God, and our beloved father, the great among the Patri­archs H.H.Pope Shenouda III, and his part­ner in the Apos­tolic min­istry His Grace Bishop Serapion. Amen.

A Sign for Change

The month of Tubah is a month cel­e­brat­ing the sal­va­tion of our Lord which has come to all the earth. He was born for the spe­cific pur­pose of sav­ing all of human­ity, both Jew and Gen­tile. Dur­ing this month we cel­e­brate the Nativ­ity, the Cir­cum­ci­sion, the Epiphany, and the Mir­a­cle at the Wed­ding of Cana of Galilee. It is a month of blessings.

You would never know it if you opened the news. We know of our broth­ers who were shot to death in Egypt. We know of the now 100,000 peo­ple that were killed in the earth­quake in Haiti. We know of churches being burned in Malaysia by Mus­lims. There is vio­lence and death every­where. So how do we rejoice?

To receive bless­ings, does not nec­es­sar­ily mean only “Joy.” It means joy, but today I want to focus on the respon­si­bil­ity that comes with this bless­ing. We as indi­vid­u­als and the Church col­lec­tively has been called upon to pro­claim and show the Joy found in Christ, and the sal­va­tion found in the Church to the world. I am well aware that I am not say­ing any­thing new. No one here would ever deny the state­ment I just made: We as indi­vid­u­als and the Church col­lec­tively has been called upon to pro­claim and show the Joy found in Christ, and the sal­va­tion found in the Church to the world.

But now is a time of reck­on­ing. Today we must judge our­selves, by plac­ing our­selves in the words pro­nounced by Christ in today’s Gospel mes­sage: Luke 11:29 And while the crowds were thickly gath­ered together, He began to say, “This is an evil gen­er­a­tion. It seeks a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah the prophet. 30 For as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so also the Son of Man will be to this gen­er­a­tion. 31 The queen of the South will rise up in the judg­ment with the men of this gen­er­a­tion and con­demn them, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wis­dom of Solomon; and indeed a greater than Solomon is here. 32 The men of Nin­eveh will rise up in the judg­ment with this gen­er­a­tion and con­demn it, for they repented at the preach­ing of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here.

What is a sign? A sign points you in the right direc­tion. A sign helps those who are lost. The sign is not the point. If you stopped at a sign and sat under it, you would never get to your des­ti­na­tion. Our Lord Jesus Christ, with his actions and his words, was enough for the Jews to believe. At the words of Jonah, the Ninevites repented, and yet the Jews refused to repent at Christ’s words. The queen of the South came for the ends of the earth to hear Solomon, and the Jews could care less about Christ’s words.

With these words, let us first con­demn our­selves. Christ is still present on earth. The Church is his body. He is in our midst, teach­ing us and guid­ing us. Have we offered a true repen­tance, or has Sun­day liturgy become our enter­tain­ment. Do we come to church eagerly to hear the word of God or do we come out of habit or bore­dom or fear? We too are in dan­ger of being judged and con­demned by the Ninevites and by Jonah. We too some­times seek a sign—God help me in this and I’ll be a stronger believer; God if you exist, heal that per­son; God do a mir­a­cle and I’ll believe in you—and if God doesn’t do what we com­mand him to do, we blame him and not ourselves.

After we con­demn our­selves, let us con­demn our­selves some more. Christ called us to be a light to the world, how have we shown that light? Luke 11: 33 “No one, when he has lit a lamp, puts it in a secret place or under a bas­ket, but on a lamp­stand, that those who come in may see the light.” You’re lamp was lit long ago, but have peo­ple seen the light of Christ in you? If you were put on trial for being a Chris­t­ian, would they find enough evi­dence to find you guilty?

We have to again come back to the basics and start from the begin­ning and make a real start. Let us again begin to grow in the right way and com­plete our healthy growth. If one part of any per­son did not form right on his body, we would say he is deformed. Let us rec­og­nize our defor­mity and let us be quick to fix it.

Let me pause, and state that I just came back from a four day Evan­ge­liza­tion Con­fer­ence in Seat­tle Wash­ing­ton. This con­fer­ence was attended by Ortho­dox, Protes­tants, and Catholics from all over the world. The group is called Chris­t­ian Churches Together, and I came home with at least two dis­tinct lessons. 1) I am deformed spir­i­tu­ally, and I per­son­ally must increase my work toward evan­ge­liz­ing and preach­ing God in my com­mu­nity. 2) It is the respon­si­bil­ity of the church to teach you how to evan­ge­lize. Every Chris­t­ian is a mis­sion­ary, and the essen­tial mis­sion of the Church is to evan­ge­lize to all peo­ple. The Church exists in order to evan­ge­lize. Now look to your right and look to your left and see how many non-Egyptians are seated next here. (Inci­den­tally, there are 3 indi­vid­u­als who have been com­ing to our church for over a year, seek­ing bap­tism. Please seek them out and make them feel welcome here.)

Now evan­ge­liza­tion is not easy. It must be done with the Church as a goal, and must be done by remain­ing com­pletely faith­ful to the teach­ings of the Church, because this com­mand to preach the word of God can­not be accom­plished with­out her, and even more so, it can’t be done against her. There is no way to belong to Christ and not belong to the Church. Christ says, “Any­one who rejects you, rejects me” (Lk10:16). The “you” in that verse is the Church, as seen in the Apos­tles. Also, St. Paul makes it clear that “Christ loved the Church and sac­ri­ficed him­self for her” (Eph 5:25).

Now the process of evan­ge­liz­ing is long, but will you begin it with me. Will you allow your­selves to be evan­ge­lized, and learn the true teach­ings of the Christ and the Church, and then will you bring this mes­sage to the world? Now I’m not say­ing preach, I’m say­ing being a Chris­t­ian. Let us recall St. John Chrysostom’s famous words, let’s tat­too them in our minds: “There would be no need for ser­mons if our lives were shin­ing; there would be no need for words, if we wit­nessed with our deeds; there would be no pagans if we were true Christians.”

St. Paul tells us today that noth­ing mat­ters to Christ except our faith work­ing through love. St. John com­mands us not to love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. My broth­ers and sis­ters, some­thing has got to change. We as indi­vid­u­als must change our­selves, and the con­gre­ga­tion of St. John col­lec­tively has to begin to change itself. Christ did not come, give us signs, die and rise and give us a new life so that we can sit in pews every Sun­day, becom­ing spir­i­tu­ally fat and mal­nour­ished in virtues that come from works.

He came to preach his mes­sage to the world, and we have been called to con­tinue that mes­sage today. I fear these verses today. I fear them because we nei­ther seek a sign nor do we seek to offer signs to oth­ers. We are sup­posed to be the sign. Peo­ple are sup­posed to look to us and then desire Christ. Do you want peo­ple to yearn for Christ after com­ing in con­tact with you? If you want this, then the Church can help you, but if you do not want this, then think twice before tak­ing com­mu­nion, because that is the entire point of com­mu­nion. We con­sume Christ so that He can con­sume us. We eat Him to become a part of us, so that He will make us a part of Him.

What are we doing for our broth­ers and sis­ters in Egypt? Send­ing them money? Sign­ing some peti­tions? Great. Now what are we doing about Haiti? 100,000 peo­ple dead, and are we going to pre­tend like it is some­one else’s prob­lem? What are we doing? Let us take this oppor­tu­nity to take bless­ings from God and help our neigh­bors who are in need. The Good Samar­i­tan helped the one who was robbed and beaten, let us enter into this work and help this coun­try in the name of God. Now give your tithes to the church as is cus­tom­ary and proper, but above and beyond, let us give to help rebuild this coun­try and these peo­ple. The youth have com­mit­ted $1000 to get­ting sup­plies and water to the peo­ple of Haiti, if any­one would like to make a spe­cial offer­ing, please see me after Liturgy. Every dollar counts.

It all starts here. It all starts at this table. It all starts with a deci­sion. Some­thing has got to change.

Pastoral Message of H.G. Bishop Serapion for the Fast of Jonah 2010

From Mon­day, Jan­u­ary 25 through Wednes­day Jan­u­ary 27, the Cop­tic Ortho­dox Church observes the Fast of Jonah, a three-day fast com­mem­o­rat­ing the fast of Jonah the Prophet in the belly of the great fish and cul­mi­nat­ing in the Feast of Jonah the Prophet on Thurs­day, Jan­u­ary 28, 2009.

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To com­mem­o­rate this holy period of fast­ing, our beloved father, His Grace Bishop Ser­a­pion has issued an audio Pas­toral Mes­sage con­cern­ing the obser­vance of the Fast of Jonah this year and its deep spir­i­tual mean­ing in our lives.

You may lis­ten to or down­load His Grace’s audio message here:

The Fast of Jonah and the Remem­brance of Our Mar­tyrs 

Trip to St. Antony’s Monastery re-scheduled for March 13, 2010

Due to fore­casted rainy and windy weather con­di­tions at the monastery, the church has decided to re-schedule this weekend’s trip, to take place on Sat­ur­day, March 13, 2010.
For those of you who already reserved seats, your reser­va­tion will be valid for the 3/13/10 date, but if you will not be able to make it on […]

Christianity and Martin Luther King’s Dream

On Mon­day, Jan­u­ary 18, mil­lions in the United States and around the world observed the Mar­tin Luther King hol­i­day, which com­mem­o­rates the life of Dr. King and the strug­gle of the African-American com­mu­nity seek­ing free­dom, equal­ity, and jus­tice in the United States.

The sig­nif­i­cance of this hol­i­day should not be lost on Ortho­dox Chris­tians. The expe­ri­ence of African Amer­i­cans per­se­ver­ing in their pur­suit of free­dom, equal­ity, and jus­tice has many par­al­lels for mod­ern Chris­tians around the world today who are like­wise pur­su­ing equal­ity, jus­tice, and reli­gious free­dom in coun­tries such as Egypt, Iraq, Malaysia, and China.

For both African Amer­i­cans and Chris­tians gen­er­ally, these cam­paigns for free­dom, equal­ity, and jus­tice have a sin­gle goal, the per­fect exam­ple of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who taught us: “A new com­mand­ment I give unto you: that you love one another, as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this shall all men know that you are my dis­ci­ples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34, 35).

To com­mem­o­rate this hol­i­day and its sig­nif­i­cance for Chris­tians, His Grace Bishop Ser­a­pion has issued a pas­toral mes­sage on the com­mem­o­ra­tion of the Mar­tin Luther King hol­i­day and the lessons we can learn from it.

You may lis­ten to or down­load this message here:

Mar­tin Luther King’s Dream is Our Dream

Festal Message of H.G. Bishop Serapion for the Feast of the Theophany 2010

The Cop­tic Ortho­dox Dio­cese of Los Ange­les, South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, and Hawaii wishes you all a blessed and joy­ous Feast of the Theo­phany 2010, com­mem­o­rat­ing the man­i­fes­ta­tion of the Holy Trin­ity to human­ity and the bap­tism of our Lord Jesus Christ.

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His Grace Bishop Ser­a­pion has posted a fes­tal mes­sage in audio for­mat. You may hear or down­load it here:

Fes­tal Mes­sage of H.G. Bishop Ser­a­pion for the Feast of the Theophany 2010

May our Lord Jesus Christ grant us the bless­ings and joy of this Feast that we may serve Him in purity and right­eous­ness all the days of our lives.

Official Statement from Christian Churches Together in the USA on the Earthquake in Haiti and the Nag Hammadi Martyrs

At the recent annual meet­ing of Chris­t­ian Churches Together in the USA, a fel­low­ship of 36 churches and reli­gious orga­ni­za­tions in the United States, from Jan­u­ary 12–15, 2010, church lead­ers gath­ered to deepen their fel­low­ship with one another and present a united front in the face of recent events and tragedies that have affected the Chris­t­ian com­mu­nity, as St. Paul says, “And if one mem­ber suf­fers, all the mem­bers suf­fer with it” (1  Cor. 12:26). The Cop­tic Ortho­dox Church was rep­re­sented by His Grace Bishop Ser­a­pion and the Rev­erend Father Daniel Habib.

At the con­clu­sion of the annual meet­ing, Chris­t­ian Churches Together in the USA issued an offi­cial press release dis­cussing the dev­as­tat­ing earth­quake in Haiti and the mar­tyr­dom of seven Cop­tic Ortho­dox Chris­t­ian parish­ioners in Nag Hammadi, Egypt.

Con­cern­ing the dev­as­tat­ing earth­quake in Haiti, the press release states:

We grieve the dev­as­ta­tion and loss of life caused by the Jan­u­ary 12, 2010, earth­quake in Haiti. We mourn the death of broth­ers and sis­ters, includ­ing Arch­bishop Joseph Serge Miot of the Catholic Church and other faith lead­ers. In the face of dev­as­tat­ing scenes of the “liv­ing walk­ing among the dead,” we seek to be icons of the liv­ing Christ. We pray that our affected broth­ers and sis­ters will be com­forted and encour­aged by our pas­toral pres­ence that includes prayers, vis­i­ta­tion and phys­i­cal aid that our churches have rushed to pro­vide. Such a pres­ence seeks to give wit­ness to Christ’s work of heal­ing and hope.

Con­cern­ing the mar­tyr­dom of Cop­tic Ortho­dox Chris­tians in Nag Ham­madi, it states:

Like­wise, as we “mourn with those who mourn” (Romans 12:15), we are one with our broth­ers and sis­ters in the Cop­tic Ortho­dox Church who have suf­fered when parish­ioners were gunned down in Nag Ham­madi, Egypt, after Christ­mas Eve ser­vices. We lament the use of vio­lence in the name of God.

In response to these pro­foundly tragic events affect­ing the Chris­t­ian com­mu­nity in the United States and through­out the world, Chris­t­ian Churches Together in the USA offers the fol­low­ing prayer based on the Litany of the Sick from the Cop­tic Liturgy of St. Basil the Great:

We bow our heads in prayer to Him “Who loosens the bound and uplifts the fallen, the Hope of those who have no hope and the Help of those who have no helper, the Com­fort of the faint­hearted and the Har­bor of those in the storm”, to look, with a com­pas­sion­ate eye, on those who are suf­fer­ing, and to be as He is, full of mercy, full of com­pas­sion, full of love.  For He grants us more than we ask for, and more than we need, and more than we understand.

To read the full press release, please click here.

Church Leaders Condemn Violence Against Copts in Egypt

In response to the recent attack and vio­lence against Cop­tic Ortho­dox Chris­tians in Nag Ham­madi in which six Cop­tic Chris­tians were mar­tyred, church lead­ers from around the world have expressed their sol­i­dar­ity with the Cop­tic Ortho­dox Church in various ways.

His Holi­ness Pope Bene­dict XVI of the Roman Catholic Church spoke out against the vio­lence in his weekly bless­ing on Sun­day, say­ing, “Vio­lence against Chris­tians … has caused indig­na­tion among many peo­ple, par­tic­u­larly because it has taken place on the most sacred days of the Chris­t­ian tra­di­tion.” The Pope expressed a desire for increased account­abil­ity from the gov­ern­ment and reli­gious lead­ers. “It is nec­es­sary that both polit­i­cal and reli­gious author­i­ties do not fail to live up to their respon­si­bil­i­ties,” the pope said. “We can­not have vio­lence in the name of God.”

Mean­while, the chief ecu­meni­cal offi­cer of the Roman Catholic Church, Car­di­nal Wal­ter Kasper, the pres­i­dent of the Pon­tif­i­cal Coun­cil for Pro­mot­ing Chris­t­ian Unity, wrote a let­ter to His Holi­ness Pope Shenouda III express­ing his sad­ness and close­ness to the Cop­tic com­mu­nity after the recent tragic assault in Nag Hammadi. “With sad­ness I have heard the tragic news of the death and injury of sev­eral Cop­tic Chris­tians after a Christ­mas mid­night Mass in Nag Ham­madi,” the car­di­nal wrote. “Please know that I am united in prayer with Your Holi­ness and with the Cop­tic Chris­t­ian Com­mu­nity at this time.”

His Grace Bishop Ser­a­pion received a kind let­ter from Michael Kin­na­mon, the Gen­eral Sec­re­tary of the National Coun­cil of the Churches of Christ in the USA, express­ing his sol­i­dar­ity and prayer­ful wishes on behalf of the National Coun­cil of the Churches:

On behalf of your broth­ers and sis­ters in the National Coun­cil of Churches, I want to assure you of our prayers fol­low­ing the death of Cop­tic Ortho­dox Chris­tians this week in Egypt. May God receive them into glory, and may God grant peace to our vio­lent and fragmented world.

Finally, the Right Rev­erend Alexei Smith, Ecu­meni­cal Offi­cer of the Roman Catholic Arch­dio­cese of Los Ange­les, sent a kind mes­sage express­ing the sin­cere sor­row of the Catholic com­mu­nity in Los Ange­les over the recent tragic events in Nag Hammadi.

We express our sin­cere grat­i­tude to these church lead­ers and all those who have stood with the Cop­tic Ortho­dox Church com­mu­nity dur­ing this dif­fi­cult time in which Chris­tians must stand up together and work for peace and justice.

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