c. 1998 Religion News Service

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. _ Ecumenical relations among Christians and rigorous programs for youth are topping the agenda of Pope Shenouda III, the spiritual leader of the Coptic Christian Church currently on a pastoral visit to four U.S. cities.

In a speech Friday (Feb. 6) at Harvard Divinity School, Shenouda stressed the Coptic Church’s contribution to Christianity, while he repeatedly called for unity among different branches of the religion.

But also implicit in Shenouda’s visit, according to experts on the church, was the hope it would bring more attention to the plight of the faithful in Egypt.”We can leave the past now and speak about what we believe today,”Shenouda said of the divisions that have plagued Christianity in a speech to more than 200 people at the divinity school.

The Coptic past Shenouda spoke of is a complex theological history that began when the apostle Mark brought Christianity to Egypt in 55 A.D. Shenouda, whose official title is Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of St. Mark, is said to be the 117th successor of Mark, who was martyred in 68 A.D.

The Coptic Church split with the Roman Catholic Church about 400 years later because of theological disputes about christology, or the nature of Jesus.

Since then, Shenouda said, the Coptic Church has sought to regain the early unity it once shared with the Roman Catholic Church and other Orthodox Christian churches.”We try to come nearer to each other as far as we can,”he told RNS in an interview.

There are approximately 9 million Coptic Christians worldwide, the bulk of them in Egypt. Some 400,000 Copts live in the United States.

In his lecture, Shenouda chronicled the”many hard times, many hard centuries”of martyrdom and persecution Copts have faced, especially, he said, under the Ottoman Empire but stretching into the present.

For example, Shenouda was stripped of his authority in 1981 by the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and exiled to a desert monastery, where he remained until 1985. He was released following protests from Amnesty International and the Vatican.

Upon his return, he said, Coptic Christians were faced with the question,”How could the church revive and return to its glorious past?”He attributed much of the church’s success to a rigorous Sunday school and youth education program.

He described a system where young Copts attend Sunday school, then become instructors, attend seminary and then go on to live for a time at retreat centers, in line with the Coptic tradition of monasticism.

Shenouda, who said there are 30,000 Sunday school teachers in Cairo alone, argued the church’s education plan has been the means by which the group has retained its younger members.”When a church has serious problems with youth, this is a practical confession that they didn’t care for them when they were children,”he said.”If we care for children, we will not have problems, I mean serious problems, with youth.” Shenouda, who was enthroned in November 1971, also said the church is expanding into other parts of Africa and the Middle East, including Libya, Congo, Namibia and South Africa, as well as Jordan, Lebanon, Kuwait, Iraq and the Arab Emirates.

Despite the pope’s optimism, some experts on the church said Coptic Christians still face religious persecution in Egypt. They noted what they called recent incidents of terrorism that have claimed the lives of priests.”Unfortunately for him and for his Egyptian flock, these are very difficult times,”said Allen D. Callahan, associate professor of New Testament at Harvard Divinity School.

Callahan, who teaches Coptic language, said”an unstated dimension to the visit, his holiness’ stated intention notwithstanding,”is an appeal for world support of the beleaguered church.”I will not talk about politics,”Shenouda told RNS.

However, when asked about the issue during a brief question-and-answer session following his lecture, he said violence will not deter the Coptic Church from its present course.”I wish to say to you, Christianity without the cross is not Christianity,”he said, referring to the central symbol of the Christian faith.”I want to say also that anything which we suffer deepens our faith more than before.” (OPTIONAL TRIM _ STORY MAY END HERE.)

Shenouda’s three-day Boston visit also included the consecration of a new Coptic church at a retreat center in Charlton, Mass., and a vesper service at St. Mark’s Coptic Church in Natick, Mass., the largest Coptic congregation in New England with a membership of 150 families.

Before arriving in Boston, Shenouda visited Cedar Grove, N.J., which has the highest Coptic Christian concentration in the United States. Cedar Grove also houses the Archdiocese of North America.

There are two other Coptic Christian dioceses in the United States _ one encompassing Los Angeles, Southern California and Hawaii, the other including the”Southern States of America.” After leaving Boston, the pope’s U.S. visit will take him to Washington, D.C., where he is scheduled to meet with the Egyptian ambassador and consecrate a new church, and then to Cleveland.

DEA END LEBOWITZ