Sunday prayers were canceled for the first time in 1,600 years at the Orthodox Monastery of the Virgin Mary and Priest Ibram in Degla, south of Minya, in Egypt on Aug. 18, according to Nina Shea, director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom. This happened because three churches had been destroyed by a mob. That wasn’t the only incident of violence against Christians that has resulted in dozens of deaths and widespread destruction of Christian properties since Mohammed Morsi was removed from power by the Egyptian military.

Greetings, Allow me Lieutenant General to express my opinion on a sensitive issue related to Egypt’s future. It was an initiative from the people that launched the 25 January revolution, just like the revolution in 1919, and all of us are proud of this. We toppled an unjust regime under which people had suffered from need, corruption, and oppression.

Upon returning from a two-week trip abroad, the level of hatred towards the Muslim Brotherhood that I found in every person I spoke to is unprecedented and shocking. From the moment I boarded the plane in New York until I left the airport in Cairo there was a constant theme to every small talk conversation I engaged in, from the air stewardess to the customs official: a complete loss of patience and lack of any kind of compassion towards the Brotherhood and their supporters. The continued marches, the sieges of neighbourhoods and the blockage of roads on daily basis during Ramadan, a month during which any street activity during is unacceptable to the general population, has unleashed the inner fascist in many Cairenes.

Egypt has rarely been a happy hunting ground for urban planners, and right now Cairo is a frightening beast, each day growing larger, louder, dirtier and more unstable. It’s a city bursting at the seams; having developed wildly beyond its infrastructure thresholds, its basic foundations are creaking under immense strain.

It appears that the second transitional phase – which began after 30 June – is already beginning to stumble, threatening to intensify civil strife in Egypt and push the nation to the edge of a destructive civil war.

Coptic Christians living in Egypt face the challenge of the complete absence of any political representation in any effective and meaningful way at every level in the Egyptian Political System. This lack of adequate representation ranges from the local level and City Councils, all the way up to and including the Parliament in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, and of course the Ministerial Seats.

On November 9th, 2012, some political Islamic groups led a protest in Tahrir square which they called” the Friday of enforcement of Sharia”, I am not to discuss the legitimacy of the demands of these groups who conducted the protest.

Mr. Hammad, a member of political office suggested that it is not even necessary to congratulate the Pope seeing as it is not Islamic, and does not concern Muslims. During the Mubarak era, the Salafis were considered to be a “fundamentalist” religious group due to the known acts of violence having been committed by the group. They are now considered the 2nd political moving force next to the “Muslim Brotherhood” and work shoulder to shoulder with the brotherhood to establish an Islamic regime of the state. Their political positions carry a heavy influence and weight in internal Egyptian politics.

The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria is set to elect a New Pope in the very near future. As a Christian Egyptian person, I have duel sense of both great hope and yet also trepidation for this new Holy Father and for our Church.