NEWS FEATURE: In Wake of Murders, Coptic Bishop Shepherds His Flock

c. 2005 Religion News Service CEDAR GROVE, N.J. _ After the bishop’s weekly class on Coptic Christian doctrine was over, the children in the audience ran up to greet him and get the candy he was doling out. With a wide smile emerging through his beard, Bishop David, the 37-year-old general bishop of the Archdiocese […]

c. 2005 Religion News Service

CEDAR GROVE, N.J. _ After the bishop’s weekly class on Coptic Christian doctrine was over, the children in the audience ran up to greet him and get the candy he was doling out.

With a wide smile emerging through his beard, Bishop David, the 37-year-old general bishop of the Archdiocese of North America, sat comfortably in a small chair at St. Mark’s Church here as he talked to the kids and handed out the chocolates.


“We love the children very much, and we believe we have to look after their spiritual needs from a young age so they are brought up close to the church,” said David, who, like other Coptic Orthodox bishops, uses one name. “We teach them the spiritual lessons. We give them candy. Children love candy.”

In his five years as a New Jersey-based bishop, he has won praise for his sensitivity and wisdom, which many Copts say have helped lead the entire Coptic community through crises like last month’s killings of a family of four in Jersey City.

Police are still investigating the case, which has received international attention, but many Copts already believe that Hossam Armanious, 47, Amal Garas, 37, and their two daughters were killed in their apartment by Muslims, for reasons relating to religious tensions in their native Egypt, where Copts live among Muslims as a minority.

Officials have not determined a motive in the case, but they are investigating a possible death threat Armanious received after an online debate with a Muslim. Officials stress, however, that the Internet threat is just one of several motives, including robbery, being investigated in the case.

“It’s very difficult, and it’s going to be tougher,” the bishop said from the archdiocese compound in Cedar Grove where he has lived for five years. “Our people are very sad and afraid. Children are frightened to sleep on their own. We try to restore peace to their hearts, but what happened wasn’t something simple.”

Though he tries each year to visit all 100 or so churches in his archdiocese _ it covers the whole country except Los Angeles and Southern states _ he has stayed within driving distance of New Jersey since the Jan. 14 killings.

He generally has cautioned Copts not to jump to conclusions about the investigation even though at the family’s funeral he called the four victims martyrs: “The blood of the innocent martyrs is crying out for justice,” he said. But for the most part, he has taken a wait-and-see approach, urging Copts not to blame religious disputes for the killings while police are still investigating.


“He did what he should do. He did not jump to conclusions,” said George Mosaad of Monroe, a Coptic Christian who emigrated from Egypt in 1996. “When he’s talking, he’s saying as much as (anybody) knows.”

But others, like Monir Dawoud, head of the American Coptic Association, said the bishop’s words underplay the possibility that the killings involved religion.

Dawoud said it is the delicate political situation for Copts in Egypt _ where they rely on Muslim leadership for religious freedom _ that dictates the bishop’s cautious tone.

“He calculates and measures the effect of every word he utters,” Dawoud said. “He says what he has to say. He represents the pope, and the pope’s under pressure back there in Egypt. … But our (lay) people have lived in America long enough, so we’ll say what we want.”

The bishop, who is known to play basketball and ping-pong with teenagers while wearing his black robe, is approachable in ways that many high-ranking clergy members are not, said Ragae Wassef of Nutley.

When it comes to teen dating, he said, “the church view is a no and a no and a no. It’s not under discussion, they don’t discuss it. The teenager would be turned off from the church. But if you discuss it with (David), he can really make them understand why yes and why no and make them choose the right way _ which is a no.”


The bishop says teaching is his favorite part of the job. A recent Monday class on the Coptic view of Christ drew more than 60 people. He continued lecturing while his Blackberry cell phone rang in his breast pocket, and smiled when a woman apologized for interrupting him so many times with questions.

He responded to her: “You can ask as many questions as you want. What’s the purpose of sitting and not knowing?”

Copts are part of a Christian religious tradition that broke with mainstream Christianity in the year 451 over a doctrinal dispute on the nature of Christ.

There are several hundred thousand Copts in the United States, mostly in New York, New Jersey and California.

(OPTIONAL TRIM FOLLOWS)

Tensions that strain relations between Copts and Muslims in Egypt _ where Copts make up an estimated 10 percent of the population _ also exist in the United States, but generally with far less potency, many Copts said.

David was 32 when he was appointed a bishop by Pope Shenouda III, the Coptic Christian spiritual leader. Shenouda likes to appoint young bishops because they can serve for a long time, David said.


Born and raised in Egypt, east of Cairo, where much of his family still lives, David’s first career was not religion. He graduated from York University in Toronto with a biology degree and worked in genetics for a year before deciding to join the clergy.

“I didn’t hate genetics,” he said. “It was because I love God and wanted to give every minute of my life to worship. I wanted to be with God all the time and know him more on a deeper level.”

Coptic Christian clergy choose new names when entering religious life. David said he chose his name for the ancient Israeli king.

“I love David, the prophet and king. I love that he loved God very much, and in his psalms he expressed that love. I love his hymns. He was so human. As a human at one point, he fell into big sins and repented. He was like us, a human being that could fall and rise.”

(Jeff Diamant covers religion for The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J.)

MO/PH RNS END

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