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| Africa North |
| Egypt’s Coptic pope quits ‘waste of time’ Facebook |
| 2018-08-06 |
| [ARABNEWS] The head of Egypt’s Coptic Church, Pope Tawadros II, has shut down his Facebook page, saying it was a "waste of time," after the church ordered monks off social media. State-run al-Ahram newspaper said on Saturday that Tawadros’s decision was in line with a dozen measures announced Thursday by the church relating to the activities of monks. One of the measures gave monks a month "to deactivate and close any social media pages or accounts and voluntarily renounce these behaviors that are not true to monastic life." On Thursday the church also said it will stop accepting any new monks for a year after the mysterious death of a bishop at a monastery northwest of Cairo. In his last posting on Facebook before shutting the page, Tawadros said that using social media is a "waste of time, age and life." "That is why I am shutting down my personal Facebook page and I salute all my brothers and sons who have followed the instructions of my sacred church." According to al-Ahram, several senior Coptic Church officials have followed Tawadros’s example and shut down their Facebook pages. Tawadros became pope in 2012, and according to Egyptian media has not been active on Facebook since he opened his page in 2009. Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Church defrocks monk after mysterious death of bishop [AlAhram] Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Church said on Sunday it has defrocked a monk at Anba Makar Monastery in Wadi El-Natroun where a bishop was killed last week. In an official statement, the Coptic Orthodox Church said it has decided to defrock Asheyaa El-Makary following an investigation by the monastic affairs committee of the Holy Synod, after accusations that he had committed actions unbecoming of a monk. The decisions were ratified by Pope Tawadros II. The defrocked monk was ordered to be released from the monastery and to return to his former, non-monastic name Wael Saad Tawadros. The head of the monastery, Bishop Epiphanius, was found dead at the monastery on 29 August under what the church has described as "suspicious circumstances." Prosecutors are currently investigating the murder. It is unclear if the defrocked monk is being investigated in relation to the case. The church urged the former monk to ask for "repentance" for salvation and eternal life and called on all Copts to preserve the purity of monasticism and not to violate it. Sunday’s decision comes a few days after the Holy Synod, the highest decision-making body in the church, issued new decrees prohibiting monks’ use of social media, media appearances by monks, and the construction of unlicensed worship sites. The decrees also included a one-year suspension on the process of initiating new monks, and a three-year suspension of the ordination of monks as priests and archpriests. |
| Posted by:Fred |