In the new year, I will not write about personal achievements and heavenly gifts, but about the year that has passed from our lives. Each step we make takes us closer to the end of our life. This inevitable end that each man has to face, which is death. Such end means we will have to meet with God at the end, even if we don’t know when. God gives us a chance to make better relationship with him and with the others. Shall we benefit from such great opportunity in the new year? I hope we can use it since no guarantee that such chance will be on the table forever! Many happy returns on the new year and best wishes to fulfill your dreams and wishes in 2020.

By the departure of Eng. Adly Abadir, we have lost a strong knight who was a symbol of courage and steadfastness, but was one of the bravest and purest men I have ever known. The Copts lost a free, bold, and generous voice serving the Lord. He was eager to serve his church and country and could throw stones into still waters of the Coptic cause. Thus, his loss was a great Calamity for the Copts. He was such a great struggler for the Coptic cause, but he earned the new life in heaven with the saints. So, we remember his work at the 10 anniversary for his departure and we praise his struggle and love. May God repose his soul in the paradise of Joy and may his great example is followed by the faithful workers in the Copts United Website. I also pray to God to give his family the heavenly peace and condolences.

2020 is a new year coming with new hope. At the beginning of the year, a person must set himself clear goals like to smoking and start exercising daily! We may have weak will, but we still have to have hope, which is once source of renewable energy. We may not have a plan to implement such goals, but our hope will find a way to carry them out. I think hope is somehow linked to love, and those who have hope must enjoy love in their hearts as well. When I was young, I fall in love with the daughter of the neighbors, who lived with her family on the first floor of the building. She was incredibly beautiful, or so I saw her. I didn’t see her much except through coincidence meetings at the entrance to the building, or when she paid my sisters a short visit. One day, I played a small role in a TV series, and she met me and was very proud of me. my heart couldn’t stop beating and I realized ever since that love is a story that can’t be explained, but it is strongly related to hope. In the new year, let us look forward to love, and to the hope that our world will concentrate on science, arts, and love. This is how life protect itself. I wish you a happy new year full of accomplishments, creativity and determination.

It is true that the British Consul General in the time of the English occupation to Egypt, Lord Cromer, said he couldn t differentiate between the Egyptian Muslims and Christians except when they visit houses of worship to pray, but as matter of exaggerations and scarcity Christian citizen have been known as super polite and shy and fear facing his problems in order to avoid evil! However such exaggerations are not acceptable, they have been supported by media through films and TV series over the years. Such stereotyping have also affected the image of the Jews in Egypt who have been described as super stingy and talk in a funny way just like they appeared in media. Perhaps the church also contributed to form such picture by keeping its children inside its walls and offering them spiritual and social services. The state preferred to deal with the church instead of the individuals, which made many Copts refrain from participating in political life and all kinds of running in elections. I was among those who wrote and warned about the importance of the role of Islamic and Christian institutions in general in supporting the positive spirit of our citizens for participation and serious interaction when it is necessary to participate and meet the nation s call at all political and social levels. ‫Dr. Nagi Youssef, editor in chief of The true path newspaper said once that ‬ negativity is a sin in Christianity since Jesus taught us to be positive and active. At the time community neglected and even attacked certain people like the blind, the leper, the Samaritan woman, and others with a negative and destructive point of view, Jesus supported them and never hurt their feelings.

While a lot of people celebrating Christmas around the world , we need to remember all people in need not just in need to money but to the spirit of “ Christmas”. We need to practice the spiritual meaning of Christmas not only in giving gifts but also in giving love and comfort to who needs it especially with the difficult world we live in right now. Christ born to give us better life not to give us material life, and we must ask ourselves the same question, are we giving others better gifts or only focus on material gifts.

Prayer is the life of communion with God that expresses mutual love between God and humanity. This is the reason God created Adam and Eve and put them in the paradise. Thus, His Eminence, Bishop Benjamin of Menoufia told us in his article The Effectiveness of Prayer about prayer as the common factor that all the apostles, saints, and martyrs enjoyed expressing their love for the Lord. Prayer does not mean asking for earthly needs since God already knows them and and gives us generously, but prayer means praise and glorification of God and constant thanks to his countless blessings. Moreover, after the fall of man in sin, prayer has other spiritual goals such as asking forgiveness, preserving the purity of conscience and human thought, and feeding the soul in order to triumph over the temptations and desires of the world. Hence, the importance of prayer is to get support over Satan s wars and strengthen love between man and his Lord and among people. Through prayer, a person rises with his spiritual life, feels a permanent yearning for God, and protects himself from vice, impurity, and subjectivity, but seeks spiritual virtue and lives in love, joy, peace, and other fruits of the Holy Spirit.

Netflix launched an offer called ‘The First Temptation of Christ’ that sparked angry responses around the world since the film presented Christ as gay. This shameful act is a moral crime and totally contradicts our firm belief. The film mocks the Bible and the Christian faith and is considered a miserable attempt to spoil the story of salvation of Jesus Christ. Jesus who was sinless said ‘Which of you convicts Me of sin? And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me?’ (John 8: 46) It is worth noting that the teachings of the Bible reject, condemn and warn about homosexuality, and there is a big difference between rejecting homosexuals as persons and rejecting their behavior. The Bible recommends respect and love for all people, but this does not mean accepting their bad behavior. I believe homosexuality is completely rejected because it contradicts the nature that God created us and that it is the result of an imbalance in psychological development, behavioral decline, immaturity in the personality, lack of sense of value and is clearly insulting the human soul. It could be a disease like any disease that requires treatment. Moreover, we believe in freedom of expression, but this suspicious work does not fall under the section of freedoms or creativity in any way, which confirms the validity of our vision that there was an American movie produced in the eighties under the name of ‘the last temptation of Christ’, which is based on the novel of Nikos Kazantzakis issued in 1953. This movie sparked controversy after demonstrating bad relationship between Christ and Mary Magdalene, and was banned in several European countries and faced sharp criticism. The director of the film presented himself to the courts in Rome because of this film. The European Court of Human Rights has triumphed for religious sanctities, and issued a historical ruling a year ago and decided that abuse of sanctities and prophets does not fall within the freedom of expression. There must be a delicate balance between the right to freedom of creativity and expression and the right of others to protect their religious feelings, and the Netflix network should respect such feelings. Therefore, this abusive offer must be immediately dismissed and removed, before Netflix apologize to all Christians of the world.

The city of Bethlehem in Palestine has a distinguished location among all parts of the world, although it does not have many natural properties that lead to a great city. Yet, it has received great attention from Christians, geographers, historians, archeologists, mainly because it is the birthplace of Christ. Nature and geography of the place: The city of Bethlehem is located in the southern part of the Hebron Mountains, which extends parallel to the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea, and is about 10 kilometers south of Jerusalem, and about 73 kilometers northeast of the Gaza Strip and the Mediterranean Sea, and about 75 kilometer to the west is the city of Amman, the Jordanian capital, and about 59 kilometers to the southeast of Tal al-Rabi`. Bethlehem is located at an elevation of about 775 meters (2,543 ft) above sea level, 30 meters (98 ft) higher than nearby Jerusalem. Bethlehem is situated on the southern portion in the Judean Mountains. The names given to the city of Bethlehem: The historians have disagreed about the name of the city of Bethlehem, where several names were Tel el-Amarna letters indicate that the name of Bethlehem is delivered from a city located in the south of Jerusalem known as the house of (Ilo Lahama), which is the god of food for the Canaanites, who built the city and its first inhabitants after migrating to it from the Arabian Peninsula. It is worth noting that Micah the prophet mentioned the city of Bethlehem or the city of "Ephrata, and assured that Christ will be born in it. “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to Me The One to be Ruler in Israel, Whose goings forth are from of old, From everlasting.” (Mi 5: 2).

As I was listening to President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi’s speech in the youth forum, he greeted women appreciating their great national and social role. I remembered what the newspapers published in early November 2010 about the crime of a livestock trader in Fayoum who killed his three-year-old daughter, fearing she will have to face the shame caused by a relative who was known as prostitute! He said in the investigations that he killed her to get her rid of shame! The wonderful writer Dr. Ahmad Khamisi wrote commenting on the incident that he decided to save his own dignity by killing his own daughter! Such men think their dignity is stored in a piece of meat that be excluded at any time by some kind of weapon! Women realize that some men may kill them to save their dignity that a girl killed her sister to prevent her from telling their father that she has a boyfriend! Dr. Ahmad Khamisi said that women are not a box to store men’s dignity. In fact, man’s honor lies within his soul, mind and body. It is in one’s positions, relations, achievements, seeking justice and freedom. He should blame and fix himself instead of blaming, abusing and humiliating women and even killing them! The aim has been lost and values have been mixed up. Thus, the writer calls men to leave women alone since they are not property. She is an independent being who doesn’t enjoy torturing others like some men do. Then, it is a matter of honor and dignity. This is how the community develops using ideas of pioneers and people of reform and enlightenment and abandon ideas of retardation and ignorance.

It s clear that Egypt and Turkey are going into clash verbally and might exceed that verbal in the future especially after Turkey announced the agreement with Libya to search for natural gas in the Mediterranean Sea. There is no doubt that Turkey has used all tools to hurt Egypt and tried to weaken its power, for example Erdogan did agreement with Libya and visited Tunisia lately, went to the Islamic summit although the absence of Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

As sinners, we always ask God for forgiveness. Nobody is void from sin if his life doesn t exceed one day on earth. Pope Shenouda III in his article Forgiveness assured us that God is merciful and forgiving by nature because he knows our human weakness. The prophet David says, for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust (Psalm 103:14).

December 25 in the West is equivalent to January 7th in Egypt. Christians celebrate Christmas in Egypt on January 7th while they celebrate it on December 25 in the West. It is a matter of calendar calculations and not creed! It is not fair to impose the Egyptian calendar on immigrants who live in a country different from Egypt. Thus, the solution is easy: we start the nativity fasting earlier and unify the date of celebrating Christmas on December 25. The Coptic Christians may celebrate the feast on January 7th as well accepting diversity which doesn’t contradict with our faith. Concerning our Coptic calendar, I would say that it is not applied even in Egypt where the Islamic calendar is more applicable and the Arab identity is embraced. Yet, the Coptic identity is hidden inside the Copts. I’d say that we should celebrate Christmas on December 25 since all the Copts don’t live in Egypt and the Coptic calendar is not applied.

It doesn’t matter how much noise you make in media, but your effect over the years is what really counts. There are many people who have been serving Egypt over the years without making too much noise. Their belonging to Egypt makes them willing to give without expecting anything in return. For more than 40 years, John Maher has been preaching Egypt in Europe and speaking about Egypt with parliamentarians, presidents and important parties in the European Union in order to clarify the true image of Egypt with the attempts of the Brotherhood to destroy its image after the revolution of June 30. I spent days with him in similar meetings with European Parliamentarians where he worked hard from 8 am to 6 pm. After the terrorist attacks on St. Samuel monastery, he led a group of French tourists in Egypt and they were really impressed by the tour that was considered a great advertisement to Egypt. He also held an international conference as head of OFIDA organization in cooperation with the Egyptian Federation for Human Rights, which was attended by more than fifteen French parliamentarians and the former minister Patrick Karam. Two days ago, John Maher delivered a speech in the European Parliament on behalf of His Eminence the Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar after Dr. Abdel-Moneim Fouad representative of the Sheikh of Al-Azhar was not able to attend the conference. He was the first Egyptian Coptic man to deliver a speech of His Eminence the Sheikh of Al-Azhar in front of an important forum of the European Parliament. I think it is the right time to honor him in Egypt at the highest level. Greetings to him for his great work and greetings to his French wife that supports him by heart.

Again, we try to be very fanatic and not reasonable when it comes to the January 7th celebration as our Christmas day. I do remember one-time Pope Shenouda himself when he has been asked about when does he think that Jesus born? And his answer was that he believes that Jesus was born in December. I just thought to mention this story, because many people try to accuse Pope Tawadros that he is going to celebrate Christmas by Dec 24 as Catholic, when Pope Tawdrus himself explained that people in the US and Canada will just do a mass so they have a chance to celebrate with their catholic partner inside the Coptic church. People in Egypt got so mad saying that Pope is deciding by himself to celebrate at this time, however, the Pope was so modest and mentioned that he can t decide anything from himself and the Holy Synod is the only institution in the church can decide whether to celebrate that day or not. Coptic needs to calm down and not criticize that pope in this severe way, we need to respect our Pope and to believe that the holy spirit guide him for the good.

Recently, I took a taxi in Germany with my daughter. As I spoke few Arabic words, the taxi driver asked about our origins. I told him I am from Egypt and I knew that he is from Afghanistan. Suddenly, he asked me a strange question: Do you support al-Sisi or the Muslim Brotherhood? I asked him: what do you think of the Brotherhood? He told me that they are believers, and they are the best Muslims on the face of the earth. I told him: The, who spreads terrorism in the world, and who made September 11 attacks? The Americans and Israel, he answered me. They did this to accuse the Arabs and the Muslims.

The deterioration of Arabic language today is catastrophe even among the university students and media personnel. Many mistakes are recorded including that article of Al-Ahram newspaper that mentioned 165 mistakes for one person in an interview. Dr. Nabawia Moussa have mentioned in her book ‘My History recorded by me’ that the Arabic language in 1906 was taught in English at the Sunni Secondary School in Cairo. This reveals the struggle to link the language to the national identity. The British government insisted on minting in both Arabic and English languages in order to show the link between Egypt and Great Britain. It was cultural, political and national struggle for liberation. Thus, all national leaders struggled to impose Arabization including Mustafa Kamel, Saad Zaghloul and Nasser. It is known that Arabic is not an easy language. The noble prize winner and the novelist Naguib Mahfouz said that his most significant struggle was with the Arabic language. Students always complain about the grammar and dozens of synonyms that are no longer used. We urgently need to reconsider the educational curricula in the Arabic language to make it easier to learn. We need to revise the lyrics of songs that are spreading in the air without control. As I right this article, the popular singers, the local accents and even the officials are destroying the Arabic language and its beauty.

Perior to the cross, the Virgin Mary was hearing howling of the daughters of Jerusalem mourning the young man presented as a silent lamb. She was standing as the sword was passing through her soul and Jesus Christ was condemned and defamed. Yet, the women loved and followed him, even if they didn’t realize that resurrection was at hand. We also stand in solidarity with those who were wounded for us, and were condemned in the 21st century. I see people arguing after the arrest of the Coptic activist Ramy Kamel like the two disciples of Emmaus who were on the way back from Jerusalem after the resurrection. The two disciples were in a state of disappointment and confusion, and did not know about the risen Lord. They saw Jesus as a prophet, a political and military leader, and therefore the two students lost the greatest significance of history and lost hope after the death of Jesus. They may have heard the testimony of the women and the Bible prophecies about resurrection, but they did not believe them. It took Jesus standing alive among them to get their eyes open. At that time, Jesus began talking to them with questions: What kind of conversation is this that you have with one another as you walk and are sad? They started talking about their feelings and pain ‘But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. ‘ They didn’t realize whom they are talking to till he sat at the table with them, that He took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they knew Him; and He vanished from their sight. Ramy also is not just a political leader, but an Egyptian Christian man who cares for his homeland and church at the same time. We pray for him and for his family hoping that he will return soon and will remain an icon for the Coptic cause.

In the last NATO summit held in the UK it was very clear that there is big tension between US from one side and the whole other NATO member form the other side. Tension showed not just in the language and gestures during the meeting but also after the meeting. This situation reminds me of the Arab summit where the Arab leaders most of the time fight instead of looking for a solution for their people.

From the top of Mount of Olives, which is located east of Jerusalem, there were many important events mentioned in the Bible. Several churches were built in the location to commemorate these events. The mountain was named after the many olive trees that distinguished it. Father John Nassif, the priest of the Church of Our Lady in Chicago, mentioned in his article Events on the Mount of Olives seven important events that took place on the Mount of Olives. It was the place where the prophet David fled, barefoot in front of his son Absalom, who wanted to take over his father s kingdom. When David arrived at the top of the mountain, he worshiped and prayed, and God sent him Hushai the Archie, who saved him from the evil plan of Achtiophyll. The Lord Jesus used to go to the Mount of Olives to pray and spend the night. A church was built there called Our Father in Heaven written on its walls the Lord s Prayer from inside and outside in one hundred and seventy-two languages, including Coptic and Arabic. The Lord Jesus passed by and went to Jerusalem and was received by the crowds with palm fronds and spread their clothes on the way. Moreover, From the top of the Mount of Olives, the Lord Jesus wept over Jerusalem. In the western slope of the Mount of Olives, there is a Gethsemane orchard in which the Lord Jesus prayed on the night of crucifixion, and an angel from heaven appeared to strengthen him, and there was built a big church decorated with mosaic icons for all events at that night, in the midst of the church, the rock on which the Lord Jesus knelt and prayed. From the top of the mountain, Jesus ascended to heaven forty days after his resurrection, having blessed his disciples and commanded them not to leave Jerusalem to preach the Gospel until they had received the gift of the Holy Spirit.

I was happy to hear statement of Egypt’s Minister of Health, Dr. Hala Zayed, who said that Egypt has succeeded in providing most of the medicines in a national industry. She added that the ministry is keen to develop the medicine industry and its regulation and control of the market, and encourage local pharmaceutical industries, and the manufacture of medical supplies and cosmetics. During the opening of the first Al-Ahram conference for the pharmaceutical industry under the title: Challenges of the pharmaceutical industry, Zayed revealed that the local pharmaceutical production represents 80% and the imported is 20%, assuring that the industry has become one of the strategic industries that affect national security by all standards. She clarified that prices are affordable for the families and reasonable for the industry. One of the achievement in that account is the local industry was able to overcome the problem of insulin deficiency in Egypt after it succeeded in covering and providing all types of insulin, in addition to entering the pharmaceutical industry of oncology. It is worth mentioning here that the effective partnership between the government and the private sector led to manufacture and provide treatment for the virus C at a low price compared to the world average. I appreciate this great idea that relieved pain of many patients in Egypt.