Dr. Ashraf Ramelah speaks about Persecution of Coptic Christians in Northampton Community College
ICC Note:
Dr. Ashraf Ramelah, the founder of Voice of the Copts, briefly explains the history and current situation of Christianity in Egypt.
11/10/2010 Egypt (Pakistan Christian Post) – Dr. Ashraf Ramelah delivered a lecture on persecution of Coptic Christian in Egypt and invited participants to learn more about miseries of Christians around globe as an American.
Talking about Coptic History he detailed that in order to comprehend the Coptic dilemma we need to dig into Egyptian history. The name Egypt derived from the Greek word Egyptos, meaning red land, because Egyptian soil became red during the flooding of the Nile. The era of the Pharaohs, the rulers of Egypt, ended with the Roman occupation years before Christianity reached them when Apostle Mark, in the year 68 AD reached Alexandria preaching the new religion.
Ancient Egyptian belief in eternity allowed Christianity to penetrate easily throughout society. Meanwhile, Roman rulers resisted the new faith inside Egypt and also throughout the other regions under Roman control by oppressing those who converted to Christianity, including the Romans and Byzantines.
All of Egypt became Christian within a span of two hundred years. In fact, of the five apostolic churches, the Church of Alexandria led their summit and along with the other four churches established the Apostle’s Creed.
In the year 651 AD, Egypt became one of the countries invaded by Arab-Muslims. At the moment of invasion, Egypt was still ruled by Romans. The Egyptian people did not take sides in this battle between the Roman occupiers and the Arab invaders. Arab-Muslims succeeded in defeating the Romans and taking over the country.
…
This was the beginning of the era of persecution and oppression inflicted upon Egyptians (Copts) by Arab-Muslims occupiers which continued throughout a 1400 year history and into present day Egypt.
…
Today as in the past, Egypt Copts are struggling to build new churches and repair existing ones based upon two decrees, Omrani and Hamayoni, which regulate the relationship between believers (Muslims) and unbelievers (Jews, Christians, etc.). The submission of non-Muslim to Muslim is based on Sharia. This is likewise happening in other Islamic countries; for example, in Afghanistan a few years ago the Taliban destroyed a huge, ancient statue of Buddha!
Today as in the past, Christian women and girls are kidnapped, raped and converted to Islam. Rape is part of Sharia. This is also in accordance to Mohammad’s message to the countries his armies were to invade that all should embrace Islam to keep from being killed.
…
