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Shenouda aggressively resisted the increasing Islamization of the country: in 1977, for example, he called on Copts to undertake a four-day fast to protest proposed legislation that would make it a capital crime to renounce Islam. The bill threatened Christians who convert to Islam to avoid stringent Coptic divorce laws, then apostatize once proceedings are over. The bill was shelved. He also complained often and bitterly that the government did not do enough to protect Copts from violent persecution by Muslim fanatics. Last year, after a reported series of church burnings, attacks on clergymen and forced conversions, Shenouda canceled all Easter celebrations except religious services and boycotted Holy Week rites. That spring, President Sadat alleges, he encouraged the 100,000 Copts living in the U.S. to stage embarrassing demonstrations during Sadat's visit to Washington and New York City. Increasingly angered by Shenouda's actions, Sadat, who has tried hard to cultivate good relations with his country's Christians, accused the "new leadership" of the Coptic church of engaging in a "conspiracy" to blacken his name and the image of Egypt's Muslims.
Shenouda's confrontational activities coincided with a marked increase in Islamic fervor and militancy among the country's Muslims, and in the wake of the violent incidents this spring and summer, some Copts began to fear for their physical safety. As Matta puts it: "All of us are in this dilemma, [because] Muslims feel Shenouda is a threat to Islam and the Koran. He was working against the line of the government and moderate Muslims." Most Copts feel that Shenouda's ouster is a tolerable price to pay for communal peace.
This is not the first time the Copts, the world's oldest organized Christian body, have walked a tricky tightrope. In the church's first centuries, the Patriarchate of Alexandria, with its eminent school of theology, was second only to Rome as the major see of the early church. In the mid-5th century, however, the Coptic church defied orthodox Christian teaching by adhering to the so-called Monophysite heresy, the belief that Jesus Christ had one nature that mystically united his humanity and divinity, rather than two distinct natures, human and divine. Schism ensued, and Coptic Christians were persecuted under the Byzantine Empire.
After the Arab conquest of 641, the Copts resisted the onslaught of Islam for two centuries. But as a result of periodic cycles of persecution under successive Muslim conquerors, and waves of immigration from Arabia, the Copts were reduced from a majority to a minority. Today, according to official census figures, they constitute less than 10% of Egypt's 43 million population (Copts complain, however, that they are systematically undercounted). They are the largest Christian entity in any Middle Eastern country, with small communities in the U.S. and Canada, South Africa, Australia and other countries.
Given the area's background of sectarian violence, the possibility that the Copts could be swept under by a tide of Islamic fundamentalism seems less remote than before. But the Copts have shown a gift for survival. As one elderly Copt puts it: