Maria’s Note: Bishop Tawadros ordained 118th Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church
Bishop Tawadros Theodorus II has become the new Pope for the largest religious minority in the Middle East.The Coptic community makes up between 6 and 10% of the 83 million people of Egypt. Tawadros, a 54- year- old doctor and assistant Bishop for central Cairo, succeeds Pope Shenouda III, the head of Egypt’s church for almost four decades and who died in March 2012, aged 88.
During today’s ceremony, the names of the three final candidates – Bishop Tawadros, Bishop Raphael and Father Rafael Afamena- were placed in a sealed glass bowl and a blindfolded altar boy picked one of them. The current interim pope, Bishop Pachomius, showed the ballot to the people into St. Mark’s Cathedral saying Tawadros’s name out loud. Tawadros, Egypt’s 118th pope, will be enthroned in an official ceremony on 18 November.
The new pope, elected in an unstable period for the Coptic community of Egypt, will have to face important challenges regarding their position under the new, evolving, sociopolitical landscape of the country. Since the ousting of the previous president, Hosni Mubarak, the Islamist agenda put forward by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists has provoked the fears of the Coptic community, who see their rights menaced, specially with the current process of constitution- drafting.
