We do appreciate heroism and sacrifice of police and army soldiers during war on terrorism to defend the homeland. On the other hand, we find the religious institutions offering full support to the doctors and nurses by donations and prayers during the current pandemic. Furthermore, the churches were closed and all church activities were suspended. Yet, some people rejected such decision and maybe they didn t know that 3 priests tested positive for Corona virus according to Archbishop Markos of Shubra al-Khaimah. In Germany, 112 people were infected by COVID-19 after attending the Holy Mass in a church in Frankfort. The church announced later that they didn t completely followed the preventive measures. I believe the churches and mosques have to participate in facing the pandemic by raising awareness and supporting the health system. Moreover, I expected greater role to the Family House organization including Al-Azhar and the Coptic Orthodox Church. There is no doubt that the role of the religious establishment is very important at this critical time, and it is better to use technology to pray and lead people spiritually instead of reopening churches and mosques and use them to spread the virus. I invite clergy to spread peace and awareness among people and invite them to donate for the needy and protect the homeland at such critical moment of the pandemic.

The visit that President Trump made to the church beside the white house while the army beside him reminded us of what we see in the middle east. A president with the army means that the army is going into politics and that s very dangerous at least for the US. It was a new scene for the US to resort to the army to show power beside the president although we know that the army in the US is not involved in Politics. I read a statement to general Milley who appeared with Trump admitting that appearing with Trump was a mistake which is a good gesture.

The Coptic Church cites a nice prayer addressing the Virgin Mary saying: We exalt you, the Mother of the true Light. We glorify you, O Saint, the Theotokos (Mother of God). This unique prayer is cited daily in the prayers of the Coptic Church seeking consolation, strength and hope. Father John Nassif, priest of the Church of the Virgin Mary in Chicago, said in his article We glorify you, O Mother of True Light that such prayer is unique among all churches of the world, in which we honor the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, and glorify the Lord Jesus, who is the head of the Church, its pride and steadfastness. This unique prayer is of Coptic origin and has no Greek origin and is not found in any other church in the world other than the Coptic Church. It was not written in the Council of Ephesus as some books claimed. This confusion may have come from the main topic discussed by Ephesus Council, which is the Mother of God. The prayer is part of the Liturgy and not the Nicene creed. Rather, it is a special prayer said before it. Therefore, it was called the introduction of the Nicene Creed. Yet, it introduces many details about the Christian faith. We don t know its writer, but we need to search for him. We exalt you, the Mother of the true Light. We glorify you, O Saint, the Theotokos, for you brought forth unto us the Savior of the whole world; He came and saved our souls. Glory to You, our Master, our King, Christ, the pride of the apostles, the crown of the martyrs, the joy of the righteous, the firmness of the churches, the forgiveness of sins.

The History will not forget what former US President Barack Obama did in destroying the Middle East by his alliance with the Islamists, and leading a plan to topple Arab regimes and replace them by the Islamists. He also tried to thwart the people s revolution on June 30 against the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood group. Today, he is trying to lead another revolution in the United States of America against Donald Trump to settle political scores, taking advantage of the murder of George Floyd to ignite the situation against the current American regime. The demonstrations were turned into violence, looting and burning, in a scenes that does not differ from the scenes of the Arab Spring led by the Brotherhood and the sponsorship of Barack Obama. Moreover, Obama appeared trying to lead many parties against President Trump, and to support the protests that took place across the country against racial discrimination in the county that brought Obama as the first black US president. Obama posted a tweet on Twitter commenting on the killing of American citizen George Floyd saying: It s natural to wish for life to just get back to normal as a pandemic and economic crisis upend everything around us. But we have to remember that for millions of Americans, being treated differently on account of race is tragically, painfully, maddeningly "normal" - whether is s while dealing with the health care system, or interacting with the criminal justice system, or jogging down the street, or just watching birds in a park. He added: It will fall mainly on the officials of Minnesota to ensure that the circumstances surrounding George Floyd s death are investigated throughly and that justice is ultimately done. But it falls on all of us, regardless of our race or situation - including the majority of men and women in law enforcement who take pride in doing their tough job the right way, every day - to work together to create a “new normal: in which the legacy o bigotry and unequal treatment no longer infects our institutions or our hearts. Just as Obama used the Brotherhood to destroy the Middle East, we find today the rise of Islamists in demonstrations and chants of enlargement in front of police stations in California, in a sign that Obama is using his allies from the Islamists to achieve his goal and mislead the American public opinion and spread destruction by Obama s evil allies.

The scientist Freud says in his theory of ‘the narcissism of difference’ that the differences between human beings are considered crucial and should be used for the benefit of humanity, but this is not accepted by those whom call themselves ‘owners of the absolute truth’. Here, the importance of media appears to teach people to accept such differences. National unity can not be achieved without embracing such concept by media and religious institutions and politicians in one society. In that matter, there are three spaces that should accept these differences. The spaces are: religion and faith, religion and life, and religion and political regime and power. The three spaces should be realistic and make the best of life. Thus, we call for renewal of religious discourse to meet that goal. The Arab director Mostafa al-Aqqad who directed Al-Resala (the message), one of the best movies that defend Islam, was killed in a terrorist attack in Amman in 2005 by a terrorist group that rejects cinema and art believing it defames Islam. In Egypt, a group of Christian clergy demonstrated against a movie called ‘I love Cinema’ declaring it defames Christianity without understanding its goal or discussing it with its makers. I believe media and religious institutions should cooperate to build good citizens and defend their rights, public peace and social solidarity.

There is no doubt that racial discrimination between humans and persecution of people is totally unacceptable. There is no real difference between people based on color, race, religion and sex. Yet, people accept them because of delusions and mental perceptions. The truth is that all human beings belong to one human race, and will give account before the one God on the dooms day. This is justice that all people should work to achieve. There is no difference between mind, behavior and efficiency of the people based on their skin color. Thus, many black skinned people won Nobel Prize as well as many outstanding writers, artists, and athletes. Many American states are witnessing mass demonstrations calling for the punishment of those who killed the black-skinned American citizen, George Floyd, which is a horrible seen spread all over the world. Peaceful expression should be guaranteed, but some protesters used the events to storm and loot shops, burn and vandalize public and private property. They burned and destroyed cars in a scene that offend the memory of George Floyd.

After the death of George Floyd in US the demonstration erupted everywhere in US asking for justice and in return the US started to threaten the people by saying that dogs are waiting demonstrator who will get in to the white house. This statement from president Trump reminded me of presidents in the middle east during the Arab spring when there were threatening their citizens if the approached their palace.

Last week, Egypt has received 30-ton shipment of medical supplies from China as a gift of support during the battle of Coronavirus. I was happy to read such news of friendship between Egypt and other countries around the world. Such cooperation is essential to face the pandemic, especially as no country could face the virus alone. Egypt in the beginning was keen to send gifts of medical supplies to several countries inlacing China and Italy. It was a matter of showing support and love, and expressing friendship. However, when I read the news, I found so many negative comments accusing China and denouncing such gifts of medical supplies. I saw many people spreading false accusations and disturbing public peace at such critical time of war against COVID-19. I think such chaos of social media is more dangerous today than Coronavirus.

After the German charter airline Condor announced the resumption of its flights to Hurghada and 7 other destinations, starting from next July, Egypt has to take the precautionary procedures to ensure safety of the tourists. Bashar Abu Talib, captain of the tour guides in the Red Sea, said that the company announced the schedule of flights for the summer 2020 season, from July to October, that includes flights from 9 German airports to 8 countries outside Germany, are Egypt Turkey, Croatia, Spain, Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Morocco. The company announced several measures of protection during the flight including a mandatory condition of wearing a mask, in addition to extra measures according to each country. Welcome to our guests from Germany and other countries, and I hope we will apply the maximum precautionary measures to protect our guests and our reputation among the people.

When I hear the opinions of some fathers of the Coptic Church about Coronavirus, I realize why it was so easy for the Arab invasion to take over Egypt as well as the Coptic identity causing harm across history for the Copts. The clergy preferred to surrender rather than to fight, and spread verses of the holy bible like ‘Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s. They made the congregation think that God’s wrath will be upon those who fight though many saints were soldiers like St. George, St. Philopatir and St. Murice who told Caesar: We are your soldiers, but we have greater God in heaven whom we worship. Here, he differentiated between his duty as soldier and his faith. It is clear that soldiers fight and believers give sermons. The two roles shouldn’t be mixed. However, some people think that soldiers who die defining their country are not real martyrs! In fact, politicians and generals take the decision of war and not clergy just like doctors treat the patients and engineers design buildings. These are not a matter of faith since even clergy visit doctors for medical treatment. I wish people don’t question my Coptic Christian faith, with all due respect to priesthood and my Coptic people.

Leaking pictures of the traitor Hisham Ashmawy s execution was denounced by the Qatari news channel Aljazerah, but the same channel had published several times pictures and videos of targeting Egyptian police and army soldiers by terrorists and murdering them, without taking into consideration the effect on their families and relatives after seeing such pictures as well as the effect on the moral state of the rest of the soldiers. Nobody has denounced such photos before and the fact is that Aljazerah was the one who introduced that type of photos to the Arab viewers including the slain of 21 Coptic martyrs in Libya, several torture scenes, burning the body of the Jordanian pilot, Muath al-Kasasbeh, and pictures of the ISIS execution of the hostages, the execution of Saddam Hussein, the corpse of Gaddafi and Abdullah Saleh, the dead body of Bin Laden and Baghdadi, and the execution and burning of the body of Eichmann, the German Nazi officer who was accused of killing and burning the Jews. May such leaked pictures of the traitor s execution console the families of those whom were killed by the terrorist Hisham Ashmawy. They only demand justice at the time terrorists are receiving support from several countries to kill more and more innocent people.

I read recently that Covid 19 lead to death of about 19 Doctors from “Elmoneera hospital” and can t deny that once I read that I got scared of the level of cautious and measurements that ministry health adopt. Its not fair that Doctors in hospital to die because lacking protocol or measurements that provide the minimum protection to front line doctors and nurses who are the most vulnerable people in this crises.

The Church of St. Mark in Alexandria is the oldest church in Egypt and Africa, dating back to the first century. It was built at the place of the house of St. Anianus who was the first to believe in Christ by St. Mark s preaching. It also contains about 55 of the first patriarchs of the Coptic Church. Father Abram Emil, Priest of St. Mark s Cathedral in Alexandria explained in his article The Church of St. Mark in Alexandria that the building experienced several stages started with the first century till the current building which was established in 1870 during the reign of Pope Demetrius II and was renovated in 1952 during the reign of Pope Youssef II, where large parts of it were demolished and rebuilt again. Then, there was an expansion process during the reign of Pope Shenouda III in 1990, and the latest renovation was in 2020 after the terrorist attack 2017 after most of the worshipers left the church after the Palm Sunday prayer. The latest renovation kept the architecture design of the building and restored the ancient Byzantine of the icon holder. We pray that God saves us from the epidemic and reopens the churches again for his people with the blessing of the Virgin Mary and St. Mark.

As we know the Egyptian people, I am so worried with the easing procedures and curfew that we will start after the end of the holy month of Ramadan. It should be noted that there are Egyptian doctors who were infected with Coronavirus while taking the best precautionary measures, and were even killed by it. Yet, the Egyptians can t follow all measures because of financial and cultural reasons. As the banks now obligate their customers to wear masks, some simple people exchange masks to visit the banks! The whole world saw the Egyptian Minister of health visiting Italy and China without wearing a mask! With all what we saw, I am afraid we should expect a disaster that we pray that God forbid and saves us from it.

Egypt s Prime Minister just announced precautionary measures during Eid al-Fitr holiday. I remembered the nineties of the last century, when the world began to digitize old systems with the start of the emergence of computers, and the peak of digitization was the emergence of the Internet and smart phones. Digitisation is the conversion of analog systems into digital content, i.e. the use of computers and smart phones to carry out business such as paying bills, cash transfers, e-mail, archiving and document storage. The most dangerous thing is the increasing role of the Internet in our lives, so it has become indispensable. It has become the teacher at the time of need, the guide to whom we resort to in times of stress, the source of knowledge and learning, and a friend to spend time with. This created a new reality called virtual reality, which is much closed to the illusion than reality, which has become even more important at the time of Coronavirus as the people found a much wider world than their limited and narrow homes. From now on, prepare yourself to carry two personalities, a real person and a digital one. In your room, you will live another alternative life in that virutal reality and your life will end when your account is broke.

Father and bishop Rewis died last week and I didn t know much about his history but I saw and listened to him many times. Bishop Rewis was general bishop not a bishop of a certain diocese and he always was refusing to be responsible for the diocese. I don t want to talk too much about his history, but I want to mention what I have witnessed with my eyes and with my ears. Bishop Rewis was always in “Asrriat Al-Rehan” church and I get used to going there especially in St. Mary fast.

I remember the sayings of great Egyptian writer Youssef Edris who said that the real poverty of Egypt it is the poverty of thought, and the thought of poverty. He said this in the early eighties of the last century, during a symposium at the Library of Alexandria. Egyptian history has recorded many situations of solidarity between citizens, especially when it comes to national economic projects. For example, a project like "Penny Project" launched by an Egyptian young man named "Ahmed Hussein" in 1931, whose idea is for every citizen to donate a single penny, in order to set up an Egyptian factory to manufacture "fez" instead of importing them from abroad. At that time, fez was part of the national dress of the Egyptians, and he found it shameful that the Egyptians had to import their national dress from abroad. The idea became very popular, and the campaign collected 20 thousand pounds, which was a very large amount of money at that time and the factory was opened in 1933. We do not need such ideas these days when 75% of our food and clothing are imported from abroad, so that we may collect donations to build factories where the poor and the unemployed work, instead of challenging each other to feed more poor people during the holy month of Ramadan. Teach a Man to Fish, Rather Than Give Fish

Thomas Russell, became chief of Cairo police and he really loved Egypt and enjoyed his stay in it. On weekends, the prestigious Englishman used to go down from his home downtown heading to Al-Jazirah Sports Club riding a camel in unusual sight. The camel was called Abu Rasas and knew the way back home without any guidance. His camel was also used to chase criminals. Russell spent 44 years in Egypt, and in 1949 he published his book On Egyptian Service in London which was translated by novelist Mustafa Obaid entitled The Memoirs of Thomas Russell, chief of Cairo Police, which describes the Social life in Egypt. Russell was a good writer like his uncle who was a novelist. He also loved hunting starting with birds and reaching women. He described many places in Egypt staring with the palaces and ending with the gangs and thieves. He also mentioned Labban area in Alexandria where the finest women worked in prostitution and the price reached one dollar per hour. He also recommended the place for his friends visiting the area. There was a huge number of English officers in Egypt, but it was rare to find an officer who had an appetite for life in various forms such as Thomas Russell, who refers in his memoirs to the Hamamel neighborhood in Alexandria, saying that most of its inhabitants are European prostitutes and their Greek managers. He says: I went through every district in Egypt with my tours as an inspector. I worked in all police stations from Aswan to Alexandria. His ability to observe and describe enabled Russell to record a unique testimony about the traditions that were prevalent in Egypt, the types of animals and birds, crimes, gypsies, tribal conflicts and even on the Rafa’i hunters who attracted him with their characters, especially Hajj Ahmed whose picture holding a five-foot-tall cobra in a Giza was published in 1919 a book called: The Egyptian Snakes and Their Hawa! He mentions the story of Hall, the unusual dog who joined the force in 1936, and became famous for being able to distinguish between real and false reports. Once he attacked a man who made a false report instead of attacking the defendants. Russell also describes the misery of peasants who earned very little money and worked very hard. He stated that the Egyptina government only follows what is said by the British one. He describes the demonstrations started on March 17, 1919, after Saad Zaghloul was exiled as the worst days of his life as the police couldn’t contain the polar demonstrations. It was not strange for Russell to praise the English occupation and the progress it brought for Egypt, but his testimony in general is very valuable with the accurate observations of a man who knew Egypt from the bottom to the top.

In the great Egyptian movie, the Kitkat, Hosni the blind man meets with Obied, another blind man, but doesn’t tell him he can’t see. Rather, Hosni convinces Obied that he has a strong sight and tells him: I wish you can see what I see! It was hilarious, but we can find similar people in our life. To each regime, there are opposers and supporters who might benefit from this regime or fear its punishment. During the days of the July 1952 revolution, there was a team who supported the revolution with enthusiasm, and another opposed it, attacked it and criticized it (this team was imprisoned and punished later). After the death of Nasser, many of his supporters announced their rejection and opposition to his regime. Even Sadat, who was his assistant and was known for being loyal to him, started to attack him and his policy. The same happened after the assassination of Sadat and the overthrown of Mubarak. Those who currently support president Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, have changed their minds concerning previous presidents like Amr Adib, Mostafa Bakry, Makram Mohamed Ahmed. Thus, their credibility should be questioned.