ON THE SUSPENSION OF COPTIC ORTHODOX AND CATHOLIC THEOLOGICAL DIALOGUE

Image: Saint George’s Church in Cairo. Credit: iStock.com/mystockimages
Kevin Beck, Educator and Lay Catholic
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The Holy Synod of the Coptic Orthodox Church announced a suspension of its theological dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church on March 7, 2024. Their accompanying statement and follow-up cited Rome’s new guidelines that allow blessings for same sex-couples.

Released in December 2023, Fiducia supplicans: On the pastoral meaning of blessings authorizes with specific caveats “the possibility of blessing couples in irregular situations and same-sex couples without officially validating their status or changing in any way the church’s perennial teaching on marriage.”[1] The Coptic rejoinder dealt only with same-sex relationships and made no mention of irregular situations.

The background to Fiducia supplicans involves two prior Vatican announcements. Rome confirmed Catholic doctrine on the inability to bless “unions between persons of the same sex” in March 2021, and Pope Francis reasserted the church’s perennial views on sacramental marriage in September 2023. Both documents advised pastoral charity and respect, “which should permeate all our decisions and attitudes.”

While Fiducia supplicans permits non-liturgical blessings for same-sex couples, it does not endorse the relationships per se. The blessings are to encourage further ecclesial encounter. “[T]he Church welcomes all who approach God with humble hearts, accompanying them with those spiritual aids that enable everyone to understand and realize God’s will fully in their existence.” The document continues to forbid “liturgical or semi-liturgical” rites for these couples.

In January 2024, the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches gathered in Rome for its annual meeting. The Commission was created to develop “the important ecumenical work” previously achieved through “official and non-official dialogue.” It has released several joint statements and published a book commemorating two decades of interlocution.

Prior to that meeting, a Coptic representative revealed they would “ask for clarification” about the meaning of Fiducia supplicans. When the Coptic Synod released its notice a few weeks afterward, they summarized their theological beliefs condemning homosexuality. The statement further rejected “invoking the idea of different cultures to justify same-sex relations,” and an aide to Pope Tawadros later described Fiducia supplicans as a way “to please Europeans.” The Synod used the same theological reasoning and alluded to culture in 2003 when it denounced “some western churches trying to legalize homosexuality [and] same-sex marriage.”

Peter Heather and others have demonstrated cultural settings have always shaped Christianity’s beliefs as early as the adoption of Hellenistic philosophical concepts, and they continue to do so today.[2] Jennifer Griggs has noted, “The good of one’s community, religious or ethnic, is perhaps the more obvious goal within Arab societies, and the citizen as an independent individual is a concept much more familiar to the West.”[3]

Just as Fiducia supplicans may have been influenced by Europeans, facets of Egyptian culture affect the Coptic church—including what some describe as “the pervasive homophobia that permeates every part of its society.” This cultural consensus includes Copts. “Homosexuality is broadly condemned in all sections of society, and Egyptian Copts are no exceptions in this regard.”

As a result of their minority status, Copts in Egypt can suffer violence by extremists and frequently find themselves needing “to prove their morality and piety, otherwise they risk being labeled immoral by conservative Islamists.” They bear the burden of shouldering “national unity discourse for safety purposes.” Although homosexuality is not illegal in Egypt, authorities can utilize “debauchery laws” to arrest LGBTQ people. Following a crackdown on displays of the rainbow flag in 2017, the Coptic Orthodox Church announced a conference opposing the “Volcano of Homosexuality.”[4]

The Coptic population is not a monolith, and a “non-monolithic Coptic population equals a non-monolithic set of desires, needs, and questions.” Nevertheless, Copts possess their own distinct rules, norms and values concerning sexuality and marriage. The state’s complex “personal status laws” authorize the church to administer divorces, new marriages, and inheritance among Copts.[5] Many of these policies became stricter under Pope Shenouda III and laxer under Pope Tawadros II.[6]

Other significant social problems related to marriage involve Coptic women being abducted and coerced into marrying outside of their community and cases of some clergy exposing women to possible domestic abuse.

Before the current hiatus, the two churches had grown close. Coptic Orthodox observers attended the Second Vatican Council, and Rome returned relics of St. Mark to Alexandria. Pope Shenouda III and Pope Paul VI issued a joint Christological declaration in 1973. More recently, Pope Tawadros II and Pope Francis have developed a genuine personal friendship. They commemorated the 40th anniversary of the historic meeting between their predecessors by establishing May 10 as the annual Day of Friendship between Copts and Catholics.[7]

Pope Francis traveled to Egypt in 2017 and proclaimed solidarity with the Copts fewer than three weeks after two church bombings on Palm Sunday. Pope Tawadros saluted Pope Francis for following “the same path as your patron Francis of Assisi, who also came to Egypt and had one of the first and most prominent experiences of Dialogue in history.”

The Patriarch of Alexandria visited Rome in 2023 and became the first head of another church to address a crowd in St. Peter’s Square. During that occasion, the Catholic Church took the unprecedented step of adding the 21 Coptic martyrs killed by ISIS in 2015 to the Roman Martyrology. Their first feast day was commemorated in St. Peter’s Basilica on February 15, 2024 with Coptic representatives in attendance.

In the backdrop of the controversy lurks the Moscow Patriarchate, whose condemnation of Fiducia supplicans comes in the context of its expansion into Africa at the expense of Alexandria.

Rome and Alexandria share much in common despite their theological, pastoral, cultural, and political challenges. Both churches recognize the sacramental nature of matrimony, neither acknowledges the possibility of sacramental marriage between same-sex couples, and each officially affirms a “pastoral role” toward its LGBTQ members.

They differ in what that pastoral role may entail, and people in their respective LGBTQ communities disagree with the approach of both churches. To demonstrate their mutual belief that “God does not disown any of his children,” perhaps the churches might consider holding discussions with their LGBTQ members and people ministering among those communities.

Official Coptic-Catholic dialogue may require a temporary pause to rethink how to proceed, but it does not have to end. The first steps at repairing the relationship between the churches occurred in May 2024. Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, traveled to Alexandria to meet with Pope Tawadros to discuss Fiducia Supplicans and the Vatican’s statement, Dignitas infinita. At that meeting, the Coptic pope “explained to Fernández the historical, cultural, and social ethos of the Egyptian people.”

Continued engagement between churches can model conflict resolution for our polarized world. I remain hopeful that formal and informal dialogue can produce the mutual trust and understanding necessary for them to repair and sustain their relationship. Otherwise, they risk allowing more than 60 years of hard work and reconciliation to dissipate after a century of separation.[1] “Irregular situation” is shorthand for relationships in which at least one person does not have a canonical right to be in a sexual relationship with the other.

[2] Christendom: The Triumph of a Religion, by Peter Heather.

[3] Dr. Griggs uses the phrase “reinvented Arabism” to include “the diverse richness of identities amongst the Churches of the Middle East,” consisting of the “Coptic churches.” Candace Lukasik points out that Copts do not consider themselves Arabs. See Mariz Tadros’s exploration of Coptic identity.

[4] It remains unclear if this event was actually held.

[5] Scott, R. M. (2020). Islamic law, unitary state law, and communal law: Divorce and remarriage in Egypt’s Coptic community. Exchange (Leiden, Netherlands), 49(3-4), 215-236. https://doi.org/10.1163/1572543X-12341567

[6] Elsässer, S. (2019). The Coptic divorce struggle in contemporary Egypt. Social Compass, 66(3), 333-351. https://doi.org/10.1177/0037768619856295

[7] This should not ignore the Coptic Catholic Church in communion with Rome.