His sure medicine is a dose of love and an equal measure of unity. That is the prescription of His Holiness Pope Theodoros, the 118th Pope of the venerable Orthodox Church of Egypt. He comes to the headship of a very historic Church in the annals of Christendom the first church after Christ. Elevated to that exalted position by a unique election system which goes back 2000 years (a process of selection followed by drawing a lot among four clergymen), the new Pope inherits the mantle of the great Pope Shenouda III.
The date of his elevation to the Papacy was November 4, 2012, his 60th birthday. His Egypt has changed since the revolution of January 25, 2011. A historic change has come to his land, the land of the Copts (Egypt), and so his message is a mixture of love, the creed of that Church which boasts of having the hiding place of the Holy family in Old Cairo, and unity, which has become quite elusive in this age of rage.
Theodoros II has a 1975 baccalaureate in pharmacy from the University of Alexandria. This was followed, ten years later, by a World Health Fellowship from the UK. For His Holiness, it was an 1985 double graduation. In that year, he was also able to graduate from the Coptic Clerical College in Egypt. After a period of seclusion as a monk at the Anba Bishoy Convent in Wadi Al-Natroun in 1986 in the western desert, he was ordained a Coptic priest in 1989. Within 8 years thereafter, he became a Bishop.
This new spiritual leader, whose original name was Wagih Sobhi Baqi Soliman, had a father who was a land surveyor. The family kept on moving in Egypt from east (Mansourah), to south (Souhag), to west (Damanhour). It was as if fate was offering the future Pope a broad look at his beloved Egypt.
On this Pope's shoulders lie the new burdens of remelding the Coptic community into one community with their Muslim brethren. It is not by numbers or a ratio of one Copt to 10 Muslims, forming the demography of 90 millions, the largest Arab State. It is by the shared history which began in the 8th Century since the time of Amre lbn Elass led the Muslims westward from Palestine into the Nile Valley. The new arrivals were under strict instructions from Khaliph Omar who, from Medina in what is now Saudi Arabia, ordered them in no uncertain terms: "No forced conversion. And learn from your brothers, the Copts."
This eventuated into Egypt becoming a model for the Islamic Law persistent call for diversity and respect for the other. But the ill wind of extremism, which cloaked itself in an Islamic garb, began as of the Khomeni revolution in Iran to blow westward blanketing Egypt in its path. Those ominous developments ignored the great patriotic stance of the Coptic church in regard to Egypt's gradual liberation from Great Britain in 1919, 1936, 1946, and in 1954 when the British troops evacuated Egypt.
With incidents of conflict between the Copts and the Muslims multiplying in Egypt, the call of the new Pope for national unity acquires added significance. After all, his great predecessor, Pope Shenouda III, was described as "Egypt's safety valve." In the same vein, Pope Theodoros sees in Egypt's Coptic heritage an avenue for preserving, through his medicine of love, a great antidote to Egypt's inter-religious anxieties.
"The Egyptian Coptic Church, "the new Pope declared," is a model for all churches, and for the Egyptian Community, in regard to the separation between State and Church."
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