Coptic pope’s visit inspires community

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This article was published 27/09/2014 (4347 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For five short hours this month, a visit from home had the city’s Coptic Christians bursting with pride.

“The big father is here. If you’re away from your father, and then he comes, it’s joyful,” explains Bahia Mikhail, one of 800 people gathered at St. Mark Coptic Orthodox Church in Fort Garry to meet Pope Tawadros II of Egypt.

During his five-hour stop in Winnipeg on Sept. 19, the spiritual leader of the global Coptic Orthodox Church toured the sprawling 61,000-square-foot. former television studio turned Coptic centre, blessed a cornerstone for a planned worship centre, addressed the assembly and handed out a Coptic cross to every person in the room.

“I cannot believe the preparations that happened,” says church member Loura Fouad of the planning, cleaning and refurbishing of their church at 1111 Chevrier Blvd.

“If this is what we do for the pope, what would we do to prepare for Jesus?”

Despite his tight schedule, the black-robed Tawadros posed with dozens of church members and local dignitaries and appeared impervious to the hundreds of cellphone cameras and tablets recording his every move.

He delivered his short speech mostly in Arabic, but prefaced his talk with a comment in English about the weather.

“Winnipeg is one of the coldest places in Canada. And I found you very warm in your welcome,” said the 61-year-old former pharmacist, installed as the 118th Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of St. Mark on Nov. 19, 2012, after the death of Pope Shenouda III.

Before he embarked on his first Canadian tour on Sept. 3, Tawadros had vowed to meet as many of the country’s 50,000 Coptic Christians as possible.

And if he couldn’t come to them, they came to him. Copts from across the province and beyond filled the largest auditorium at St. Mark’s for a chance to see and hear and maybe even talk to their holy father.

“He didn’t visit Saskatchewan,” explains dentist Fawzy Girgis of why his family travelled from Regina to Winnipeg to meet their pope.

“He only visited (Coptic) churches and we don’t have a church in Regina.”

While in Winnipeg, Tawadros blessed a cornerstone for a $15-million Coptic-style church to be built immediately west of the current building.

The 25,000-square-foot church is still in the planning stages, but could be constructed within the next five years, says architect Samer Nessiem.

“It comes from the old, old, old tradition, so it is important to maintain the tradition,” he says of the design, which features six gold-coloured domes.

The Coptic Orthodox church is among the oldest Christian traditions, established in Alexandria, Egypt, in 43 A.D. Little has changed since in the church’s rituals or doctrines, and the term “orthodox” is used to describe the preservation of the original faith.

Winnipeg is home to six other Orthodox groups, including Ukrainian, Greek, and Romanian.

Earlier this month, Tawadros consecrated the newly completed St. Mark Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Markham, Ont., the first building of what will become a sprawling complex including a school, community centre, seniors housing and a museum, says Rev. Ammonius Guirguis, a member of the pope’s delegation, which included two Egyptian bishops and Bishop Anba Mina of Canada.

“To the Coptic people, church is their life. They come to worship, to have community meals, to educate their children,” explains Guirguis, one of the priests at St. Mark’s in Markham.

“We have to apply Christianity through love, through the society.”

brenda@suderman.com

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