<h3>Introduction</h3>
Millions of Egyptian Copts await the issuance of the Personal Status Law for Christians. The draft, which is in agreement with all Christian sects, was completed in December 2023, according to Counselor Omar Marwan, the Minister of Justice (Radwan, 2024). The government&rsquo;s announcement comes after roughly seven years of deliberations on the Personal Status Law, and changes in the internal regulations governing divorce in the Coptic Orthodox Church (Els&auml;sser, 2019). These amendments were adopted by Pope Tawadros II, Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of St. Mark, as he bore responsibility for the personal status issue when he assumed the papacy in 2012 from his predecessor, Pope Shenouda III.
This file was a problem for the Church of St. Mark from 1998 to 2008, during that time Pope Shenouda III tried to meet with the heads of the rest of the Christian denominations to settle on a unified personal status law for Christians (Maugiron, 2011). Pope Tawadros and the leaders of Christian denominations began considering the proposed law in 2017 and sought to issue it.
In this article, the crisis of the draft personal status law among Christians will be analyzed. Also, the reasons for the delay in issuing the law will be presented. Finally, alternative solutions will be explored.
<h3 dir="ltr">Why did the need arise for a personal status law for Christians?</h3>
Christian denominations in Egypt are divided into three main churches:
The first is the Orthodox family, which includes the Coptic Church, whose subjects historically constitute the majority of Egyptian Christians, in addition to the Greek Orthodox Church and the Armenian Orthodox Church.
The second family is the Evangelical family, which includes all the Reformed churches and is brought together by the General Evangelical Council under the chairmanship of the head of the Evangelical community. The most prominent churches of this family are the Evangelical Church of Egypt, then a number of small sects, like the Apostolic Church, the Church of Grace, the Church of God, and others.
The third family is the Catholic Church. The Coptic Catholic Church is the most prominent of its churches, along with the Roman Catholics, the Armenian Catholics, the Chaldeans, and others.
Finally, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, which has been an officially recognized sect in Egypt since the 18th century (Sharkey, 2017). However, other churches do not consider it a Christian sect for theological and doctrinal reasons. The non-recognition of Seventh-day Adventists as a Christian sect has extended beyond the three main churches to become a clear clause in the draft Personal Status Law, which clearly states that Jehovah&rsquo;s Witnesses and Seventh-day Adventists are not Christian sects (Allam, 2016).
The failure to recognize Seventh-day Adventists causes a legal complication that leaves the current draft law open to contention, as it contradicts other documents that regard the Seventh-day Adventists as a Christian sect in Egypt.
Based on this disparity among Christians in Egypt, the need for a unified personal status law has emerged. In 2008, which is considered a pivotal year in this issue, Pope Shenouda III suspended the 1938 Personal Status Regulations for Copts. The law had granted Christians the right to divorce or annul marriages for various reasons, including illness, abandonment, and adultery. The Pope&rsquo;s amendment invalidated all previous reasons for divorce, only allowing Copts to divorce in cases of adultery. Under the 2008 amendments, the Church now permits divorce and allows victims of adultery to marry a second time.&nbsp;
Pope Shenouda III's amendments caused great controversy at the time, and the Pope justified his decision by saying that preserving Coptic identity begins with preserving the family from fragmentation. Pope Shenouda believed that the 1938 regulation was not based on the Bible&rsquo;s texts, but rather approved under pressure from the Milli Council and the Coptic secularists. &ldquo;Some try to use religion to justify their wants and desires, while the role of religion is to control these wants and desires,&rdquo; Pope Shenouda said (Shaham, 2010).
Because a valid Christian marriage is a marriage of people who are united in religion and sect, those who wish to divorce have no choice but to change their religion or sect. However, if one converted to Islam, then both spouses are subject to Islamic law and, therefore, could divorce. To prevent more divorces, Pope Shenouda saw it necessary to prohibit the changing sect by issuing a unified personal status law in 2008, after meeting and agreeing with leaders of other sects (Maugiron, 2011).
Before the death of Pope Shenouda III and for years after his passing, the issue of Coptic divorce posed a dilemma as more and more of those wishing to divorce filed court cases. However, the Church did not step in to resolve the matter. Years later, after the January 2011 revolution, coalitions emerged for those seeking a divorce, marking an era of activism and freedom of expression. Demonstrations of those wishing to divorce surrounded the Ministry of Justice on one occasion and the clerical council responsible for divorce cases in the cathedral on another. The &ldquo;dog incident&rdquo; as it has been dubbed by the media, took place in July 2011, when the cathedral used guard dogs to disperse demonstrators on its grounds who were seeking a divorce. The issue continued until the arrival of Pope Tawadros II to the patriarchal seat. Demonstrations returned in 2015, and those wishing to divorce intercepted the Pope&rsquo;s car before he delivered his weekly Wednesday sermon, which put great pressure on his administration.
In 2016, Pope Tawadros presented before the Holy Synod of the Coptic Church amendments to resolve the divorce crisis this included administrative reforms, and revisions to the divorce regulations themselves (Kamil, 2019). In terms of administrative amendments, Pope Tawadros decided that the clerical council responsible for managing the divorce file would be divided into six sub-councils according to geographical regions, managed by bishops who look into the files of those wishing to divorce.
The administrative amendments led to the transfer of the Coptic divorce file from the control of Bishop Paula, the Metropolitan of Tanta - who remained solely responsible for the file for 20 years. The adoption of this decentralized approach to examining cases led to a breakthrough in granting permits for second marriages (ELs&auml;sser, 2019).
The amendment to the divorce regulation included what Pope Tawadros II described as &ldquo;the invalidity of a marriage as a result of abandonment,&rdquo; granting the right to divorce and a second marriage to the abandoned party. This considers abandonment as a break in the sacred sacrament of marriage. It was agreed that the abandonment clause would give the abandoned husband or wife the right to divorce after five years if there are children and three years if there are no children. An annulment clause was also approved in cases of incurable diseases, like impotence if it is concealed before marriage, or insanity or addiction, to name a few. Amendments to the regulation by Pope Tawadros II contributed to the resolution of the divorce crisis, ending the era of Coptic divorce activists (ELs&auml;sser, 2019), with many of them obtaining the right to divorce from the church and the court as well.
<h3 dir="ltr">Did the regulation amendments solve the divorce crisis?</h3>
While the amendments to the Coptic Orthodox internal regulations adopted by Pope Tawadros II and the Holy Synod of the Church appeared to be an administrative change in the way, the divorce file is managed among Copts, the amendments constituted a breakthrough for thousands of individuals who were trapped in failed marriages (ELs&auml;sser, 2019). In many cases, the right to divorce and second marriage permits were granted. This change alleviated the severity of the crisis in the Orthodox Church, which is the largest Christian sect in Egypt.
This raises a question about the seriousness of the Egyptian government in issuing a personal status law for Christians, given how the issue of divorce among the largest Christian community had become less urgent following the amendments. There are problems in the draft law that was agreed upon by the three major sects (Orthodox, Catholic, and Evangelical) &ndash; as their interpretations of the divorce verses do not align, making the law&rsquo;s application in Egyptian courts the subject of scrutiny.
The amendments transformed the issue of Coptic divorce from a crushing crisis and pressure on the church to an ecclesiastical matter that is dealt with through competent church committees. Consequently, this may lead to the postponement of the issuance of the personal status law for Christians in light of the declining need for the law and the difficulty of issuing it as the draft would have to account for the practices and beliefs of each Christian sect.
<h3 dir="ltr">The Dilemma of Coptic Divorce</h3>
Many Copts seeking divorce must obtain it through the Egyptian family court. However, even if the court grants the plaintiff a divorce ruling, they are not allowed to marry again. This is because only the Church has the right to issue a permit for a second marriage. In the current system, the Coptic priest plays two roles: the first is his spiritual role as a fulfiller of the wreath of marriage as a sacred church sacrament, and the second is his role as a notary of this marriage, as he was given marriage records by the Egyptian Ministry of Justice.
However, if one of the spouses resorts to changing their religion or Christian sect, the court resorts to applying Islamic law, and they obtain a ruling invalidating the marriage for changing the religion. Therefore, Christians who wish to divorce turn to this solution to obtain a divorce as well as permission to marry again. A permission that cannot be obtained without the approval of the Church.
The divorce dilemma goes back to the church&rsquo;s relationship with the state, a relationship that was governed by political factors. This formed what academics call the new milliyah system (McCallum, 2010), which is the term used to refer to the church&rsquo;s relationship with the Egyptian state after the July 1952 revolution.
This system makes the Pope the sole political representative of the Copts, an extension of the Ottoman milliyah system in managing non-Muslim subjects in the country. According to this system, the Pope-Patriarch possesses not only spiritual authority over his subjects but sometimes political and legal authority, which explains the authority and role of the Church in personal status issues. The Church has the sole right to marry Copts, and it possesses both spiritual and legal authority. An Egyptian Christian cannot marry according to the current system without the approval of the Church and fulfilling its requirements and conditions for completing the sacrament of marriage and documenting the contract in the Ministry of Justice.
<h3 dir="ltr">Civil marriage is the solution</h3>
The option of civil marriage is absent from the Egyptian legal framework, and the marriages either take place by a marriage officiator or a priest. While talk about issuing a unified personal status law for non-Muslims seems to have been repeated since 2008, the solution exists away from all the dilemmas and is as simple as allowing civil marriage. Providing civil marriage to all citizens - regardless of their religion - gives nationals the right to choose the method in which they wish to marry, and thus religious marriage through the church becomes one of the options presented to Copts. However, it would put an end to the current system, which makes the marriage and divorce of Egyptian Christians impossible except through the church.
However, the availability of civil marriage as a solution disturbs the Church, which believes that it is necessary to preserve Christian marriage in its current form to preserve the Coptic identity, as Pope Shenouda stated before. Availing such a choice gives Egyptian Christians freedom of choice, dismantles the new milliyah system, and grants Egyptian Christians their citizen rights rather than allowing them to be treated as subjects of the church which controls their personal and living conditions. These rights would be granted regardless of their degree of religiousness or their desire to belong to the sect.
The Church also strongly opposes making civil and church marriage for people to choose, because this reduces its legal and perhaps spiritual control over its subjects and allows them to practice outside the walls. This seems difficult in light of the existing political alliance between the state and the Church, which is essentially based on the exchange of interests according to the new religious system.
<hr>
References
<ul>
<li dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;">Els&auml;sser, S. (2019). The Coptic divorce struggle in contemporary Egypt. Social Compass, 66(3), 333&ndash;351. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0037768619856295">https://doi.org/10.1177/0037768619856295</a> </li>
<li dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;">Kāmil K (2019) Tawāḍrūs al-thānī &hellip; al-awjuh al-mukhtalifa li-l-baṭriyark fī sittat aʿwām. EIPR Blog, 13 January,&nbsp;<a href="https://eipr.org/blog/">https://eipr.org/b</a><a href="https://eipr.org/blog/">log/</a></li>
<li dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;">Maugiron N (2011) Divorce and remarriage of Orthodox Copts in Egypt: The 2008 state council ruling and the amendment of the 1938 personal status regulations. Islamic Law and Society 18: 356&ndash;386.</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;">McCallum, F. (2010). 1. In Christian religious leadership in the Middle East, the political role of the patriarch (Vol. 1, pp. 4&ndash;40). essay, Edwin Mellen Press</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;">Shaham R (2010) Communal identity, political Islam and family law: Copts and the debate over the grounds for dissolution of marriage in twentieth-century Egypt. Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 21: 409&ndash;422.</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;">Sharkey (2017) A history of Muslims, Christians and Jews in the Middle East. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.</li>
</ul>
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Arabic References
<ul>
<li dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;">
Allam, S. (2016, May 5). Secretary General of the Council of Churches of Egypt: Building churches is not a task of security, and we build them with donated money. We are not concerned with &ldquo;Orthodox&rdquo; evangelism, and we are concerned with influence, not numbers. We hope that the state will agree to equality between males and females in inheritance. the seventh day. <a href="https://www.youm7.com/story/2016/5/5/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D9google_vignette">https://www.youm7.com/story/2016/5/5/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%</a><a href="https://www.youm7.com/story/2016/5/5/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D9google_vignette">D9google_vignette</a>
</li>
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<ul>
<li dir="ltr" style="text-align: left; font-size: 10pt;">
Radwan, A. (2024, February 5). Christians are awaiting...the first unified law for &ldquo;personal status&rdquo; across the different churches...and the draft law meets the needs of 6 sects...the controversial point is &ldquo;the refusal to expand divorce and its causes&rdquo;..and an expert answers the thorny questions. parliamentary.&nbsp;
<a href="https://www.parlmany.com/News/2/539831/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%">https://www.parlmany.com/News/2/539831/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%&nbsp;</a>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="text-align: left; font-size: 10pt;">
Bishop Paula in an exclusive interview with Al-Shorouk: Copts&rsquo; files are on the laptop...and marriage permits are given by email. Copts United. (2011, July 1). &nbsp;<a href="https://www.copts-united.com/friendlyPrint.php?A=42195">https://www.copts-united.com/friendlyPrint.php?A=42195&nbsp;</a>
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