Egypt's Coptic Pope Shenuda III Dies

Pope Shenuda III, who died on Saturday aged 88, was a fearless champion of Egypt's Coptic Christians ready to defy the country's Muslim government, but he also took a more conciliatory tone in his final years.

An increasingly frail Shenuda, who rarely appeared in public, was faced in recent years with a spike in attacks against the Coptic community which he led for more than four decades.

Named Coptic pope of Alexandria in 1971, Shenuda led the Middle East's largest Christian community for the best part of a generation that saw Egypt hit by a wave of Islamic militancy and rising Muslim-Christian tensions.

Shenuda's 41-year papacy was also marked by close relations with president Hosni Mubarak, who was ousted by a popular uprising last year and whose dictatorial style he followed in his iron rule over the Coptic Church that brooked no dissent.

Shenuda leaves behind a community nervous about the increased assertiveness and visibility of Islamism in post-revolt Egypt, with Islamist parties dominating the new parliament.

The pope was known for his tight grip on the church and was quick to expel clergy with whom he differed over theology; He refused to countenance increasing calls for a more flexible policy regarding the church's total ban on divorce.

"He hates being challenged and he hates being corrected. He won't accept criticism," said a personal friend of the Coptic leader.

"This is partly due to his personality and due to the general climate," he said in a reference to simmering Muslim-Christian tensions.

It was with Mubarak's predecessor, Anwar Sadat, which Shenuda famously clashed, resulting in his being relegated to an isolated desert monastery in 1981.

Shenuda was always careful to take a strong Arab nationalist line, even when it put at him at odds with Sadat's efforts to normalize relations with Israel.

He famously banned Copts from performing pilgrimage to Jerusalem while it remained under Israeli occupation, and opposed the normalization of Egypt's relations with the Jewish state.

When Sadat made his historic visit to Jerusalem in November 1977, paving the way for a peace treaty with Israel two years later, Shenuda refused to accompany him.

He also openly criticized Sadat for his courting of the Islamists as a counterweight to the then more powerful leftist opposition, and in 1981 refused to hold Easter services.

His outspokenness cost Shenuda a spell under effective house arrest during which the administration of the church was entrusted to a panel of five bishops.

But it was to prove a prophetic move when Sadat fell victim to an Islamist's bullet the following month. A year later Mubarak released him and in 1985 restored his full authority.

Shenuda since never wavered in his support for Mubarak, and in Egypt's first contested presidential elections in 2005 he backed the incumbent despite many complaints from the Copts that the government had not defended their interests.

The popular uprising in January-February 2011 put the pope in an awkward position, with many Christians taking to the streets to help bring Mubarak down.

He was cautious about maintaining good relations with the military generals who took power after Mubarak, criticized by the Christian youth for his weak reaction to confrontations between Coptic protesters and the army which left over 20 dead.

Recent years have seen the burning of Coptic churches and clashes over reportedly forced conversions from Christianity to Islam, despite government declarations about the sanctity of "national unity."

A gifted and animated preacher, Shenuda's weekly sermon drew thousands of young Copts to Cairo's Abassiya cathedral.

"He has a charisma that takes over the room," said Marcelle Botros, 33, who was a regular in the congregation.

Born Nazeer Gayed on August 3, 1923, Shenuda was raised in the southern province of Assiut, one of the mixed Muslim and Christian rural communities that were to see a wave of deadly sectarian unrest in the 1980s and 1990s.

After graduating in history from Cairo University, Shenuda studied at Egypt's Coptic Theological Seminary before being ordained as a priest in 1954 at the monastery of Deir al-Suryan, one of the ancient desert monasteries of Wadi al-Natrun, northwest of Cairo.

In accordance with Coptic tradition, he lived a monastic life, spending six years in solitude in a cave.

Shenuda's community is one of the Oriental Orthodox churches that are not in communion either with the Roman Catholic Church or the Eastern Orthodox churches because of a 5th century disagreement over the nature of Jesus.

However, the pope maintained a keen interest in promoting church unity.

He served as head of both the World Council of Churches and the Middle East Council of Churches and presided over a major expansion of the faith in Europe, Australia and North America.

His flock makes up around 10 percent of Egypt's 82 million population, according to church estimates.