Grant Lord, Your Protection to All Who Suffer Persecution

 Almighty ever-living God, who as an example of humility for the human race to follow caused our Savior to take flesh and submit to the Cross, graciously grant that we may heed his lesson of patient suffering  and so merit a share in his Resurrection.                  Collect for Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion 

Serving yesterday at the Palm Sunday liturgies in my parish, I had the opportunity to listen to this prayer and meditate on it, in light of the bomb attacks on two Coptic Orthodox churches in Egypt where worshippers were celebrating, as we were, the liturgy of Palm Sunday.  Amid the carnage and destruction of yet another hateful attack by ISIS against them,  it seems astonishing that the survivors are truly heeding the Lord's "lesson of patient suffering".  But they continue to do so, refusing to retaliate, but submitting to the Cross and choosing "to bear all things" in Christ.

The persecution of the Christian minority in Egypt, (who number approximately 8 million souls and make up about 10% of  Egypt's population of 83 million) is nothing new.  In the summer of 2013, mobs angered by the removal from office of President Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, burned many Coptic Orthodox churches throughout the country.  In December ISIS bombed the Coptic Orthodox cathedral in Cairo.  In the northern Sinai, at least 40 Copts have been murdered in 2017 alone and hundreds of Christians have been forced to abandon their homes and flee to Cairo for safety.

And in 2015 twenty Coptic migrant workers (and a non-Christian Chadian man who chose to die with them) were beheaded by ISIS on a beach in Libya.  They were quickly glorified as martyrs by the Coptic Orthodox Church.

As Holy Week begins, I am remembering in meditation and prayer the persecuted, martyr church of Egypt.  May the example of their steadfast and patient witness to our loving and merciful Savior, who "accepted unjust condemnation to save the guilty" (Preface for Palm Sunday) strengthen our resolve to reject hatred and violence and change the hearts of their persecutors.      

Blessed Are the Merciful

Coptic Fresco of Christ Pantocrator, Monastery of St. Anthony, Egypt

There has been another attack against Coptic Orthodox worshippers in Cairo, in the chapel of St. Peter and St. Paul adjoining the main cathedral and seat of the Coptic Orthodox patriarch, Tawadros II. Coptic Christians make up an estimated 10-13% of Muslim majority Egypt's population of 82 million souls and are the largest Christian community in the Middle East.

Although Coptic Christians are understandably angry about the failure of the government and security forces to adequately protect them from violent attacks and the ongoing discrimination they face, what is striking is that there have not been reprisals by Christians against their Muslim neighbors.  Not in 2011 when the cathedral in Alexandria was attacked, not in 2013 when Coptic churches and neighborhoods were burned by angry mobs after the coup that removed President Morsi from office and not in the aftermath of this deadly suicide bombing that killed 24 worshippers at the Divine Liturgy, mostly women and children.

In the face of such terrible provocation, these Egyptian Christians are adhering to the teaching of Jesus: to love your enemies, to do good to those who hate you, to imitate Christ's own example on the cross when he forgave his tormenters. They confess Jesus, including his non-violent love, even for enemies, during this terrible time of persecution and fear.

Let us pray for their perseverance in the way of Christ and his gospel.  Let us commend ourselves to the holy prayers of the clergy and faithful of this martyr Church, to intercede for us so that we might not be mastered by our own fears and anxieties in these uncertain and unsettled days in our own country.