CAIRO -
The month of August 2022 witnessed the outbreak of a series of fires inside churches in several Egyptian governorates.
The first and most tragic fire broke out on August 14 in the Abu Sefein Church in the Imbaba neighborhood of Giza governorate, killing 41 people, most of them children. Then small fires continued in churches in Giza and Minya, and a monastery in Assiut.
The incidents brought to the fore the file of the Egyptian churches, which is characterized by ambiguity, inconsistency and the absence of recent official statistics regarding the number of churches or their budgets and sources of funding, which is the same ambiguity that characterizes the number of Egyptian Christians.
In the following report, we try to answer the most important questions related to the churches in Egypt.
How many churches?
There are no recent official statistics available that determine the exact number of Egyptian churches, whether licensed or operating without licenses.
The oldest known official figures regarding the number of churches in Egypt were contained in the report of the fact-finding committee formed by the Egyptian People’s Assembly following the events of Khanka in 1972, when some people burned and removed a building belonging to a Christian association that was being converted into a church.
The report quoted the (official) Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics that the number of churches in Egypt until 1972 reached 1442.
On the other hand, the data of the Ministry of Interior stated that the number of churches registered with it until 1972 was only 500, and that during the period (1962-1972) it issued licenses to 127 churches, including 68 churches for the Coptic Orthodox (22 new churches, and 4 licenses for reconstruction, restoration and legalization). Conditions of 42 ancient churches).
The committee attributed the discrepancy between the figures of the Central Agency and the Ministry of Interior to the existence of a number of churches that were built before the issuance of the Ministry of Interior’s decision to build churches in 1934, while some of them were built without obtaining licenses.
What is the status of churches in the general census?
The general census conducted by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics in 1976 - the oldest published census on the official website - did not mention the numbers of churches separately, and only included them within places of worship.
But in the 1986 census, the numbers of churches were included separately, and there were 984 churches in different parts of the country, after which the official announcement of the number of churches in the publicly published reports ceased.
In October 2014, the head of the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics at the time, Major General Abu Bakr al-Jundi, stated - in a television interview - that the number of churches was 1,200, according to the 2006 census.
However, the 2006 census published on the official website of the agency does not give figures for the number of churches or other places of worship.
Has the number of churches doubled?
Despite the absence of official figures, some studies have shown that the number of churches has doubled within two decades (1986-2006).
A study prepared by the former advisor to the military courts and the lawyer of cassation, Hussein Abu Issa, stated that the number of churches reached 2,400 in 1996, and increased at the end of 2006 to 2,626 official churches (1,326 Orthodox churches, 1,100 Protestant churches, and 200 Catholic churches).
The study - which was reported by a member of the Islamic Research Academy in Al-Azhar Al-Sharif, Dr. Muhammad Emara, in his book "The American Exploitation of Minorities" (2011) - added that there are more than 500 churches without a license, operating under the cover of a "Coptic Society".
In January 2017, Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II responded to a question by the journalist Amr Adib about the number of churches in Egypt, that he did not have an accurate inventory of their numbers, suggesting that the number ranged between two thousand churches to 2500, without clarification if the number pertains to Orthodox churches Only the mother of all Christian denominations.
In 2018, broadcaster Amr Khafagy, through his program on the "On TV" channel, attributed to the Central Agency for Mobilization and Statistics that the total number of churches in Egypt is 2,869.
What is the truth about the work of churches without an official license?
For decades, there has been talk of thousands of churches operating without a license, most of which are residential buildings or homes that have been converted into churches. The Egyptian churches have long sought to issue a law that would facilitate building new churches and legalizing the status of existing churches without a license.
In order to activate Article 235 of the Egyptian Constitution, in 2016 the authorities issued Law No. 80 of 2016 regulating the construction and restoration of churches.
In January 2017, the main committee was formed to legalize the status of churches, and churches submitted requests to legalize the status of more than 5,500 churches and service buildings, so it became clear that there are about twice the declared number of churches operating without a license.
The Orthodox Church alone submitted 4,500 Church files to legalize their status, according to statements by Rev. Michael Antoun, representative of the Coptic Church in the Churches Legalization Committee.
The Evangelical Church submitted files of 1,070 churches and service buildings, according to a statement by the head of the Evangelical community in Egypt, Reverend Andrea Zaki, in an interview with the Egyptian newspaper Al-Shorouk in August 2019.
In the period (May 2018-April 2022), the Committee to legalize the status of churches issued 23 decisions to legalize the status of 2,401 churches and buildings that were operating without licenses, including the Abu Sefein Church, which witnessed the tragic fire.
How many new churches?
The period (2014-2022) witnessed the construction of 40 churches in the new cities, while 34 others are being established, as well as the replacement and renovation of 75 churches that were destroyed in 2013, according to the media center of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers.
And in January 2019, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi inaugurated the Cathedral of the Nativity of Christ in the new administrative capital, east of Cairo, the largest cathedral in the Middle East, according to government statements.
In March 2022, al-Sisi directed the government to build a church with every new mosque built in new housing projects, regardless of the number of Christians in those areas.
What about the economy of churches?
As there are no official figures regarding the number of churches in Egypt, there are almost no official, governmental or ecclesiastical statistics regarding church funds or its economy.
The Egyptian Church rejects the supervision of the state's monitoring and accounting bodies over its resources and funds, and justifies this by the fact that it does not receive a budget from the state, and that it self-finances itself from the donations of Christians in particular, and therefore it is private funds that should not be subject to government control.
In August 2012, the Church considered attempts by the government to control its financial activity as “outright persecution of the Copts,” according to the description of the Acting Coptic Patriarch of the Coptic Church, Anba Pachomius, stressing that the Church “will not accept it under any circumstances.”
The church officially objected to Article 212 of the 2012 constitution, which paved the way for state supervision over the church’s financial and economic activity, and the article was deleted in the 2014 constitution.
What are the funding sources?
Unofficial estimates of the Egyptian churches’ funds range from hundreds of millions to billions of pounds annually, from their various sources, which include:
Tithing: The first item for financing the church's budget, according to official statements. The church receives a tenth of a Christian's money, whether it is the proceeds of a salary, property, grants, or emergency funds.
Al-Bakour: It means every virgin money that a Christian earns, such as the first salary he gets, or the first bonus, and so on.
Vows: They are offered in particular on Coptic birthdays that are held in monasteries every year.
Donations: financial and material from the Copts at home and abroad.
Economic and commercial projects: The church owns and operates various economic and commercial projects and social activities, especially within the vast monasteries that include agricultural lands, animal and fish farms, and factories for food products.
Coptic Endowments: It is managed by the Coptic Endowments Authority.
Where do churches spend their money?
In 2013, the Orthodox Church launched a social welfare program to meet the needs of poor Christian families, allocating 30% of the churches’ revenues for this purpose, and due to the lack of oversight of church funds, it is not known precisely where they are spent.
But in February 2021, Al-Karaza magazine - supervised by Pope Tawadros II - published a detailed table of the services of the episcopate of public and social services of the Church of St. Mark for the year 2020, showing that the episcopate provided services worth about 95 million pounds.
The magazine published another table under the title "The Shepherd's Service Activities and Mother of Light" for the same year, showing the provision of services with a financial value of more than 45 million pounds.