IT WAS THE UPROAR caused by the new St. Athanasius Church in Moqattam that sparked Emad Abdel Sayed’s interest. Wanting to see for himself what all the fuss was about, the Coptic accountant decided to take his 19-year-old daughter and join 50 or so other worshippers for Friday morning mass at the now-infamous church.

“I heard about it from the press,” Abdel Sayed says. “As a Christian, I had to know about the objectives of this church and what it calls for. I had heard that it was a dissident church and has special traditions.”

“We came to check it out closely and make our own judgement,” adds his daughter Gina.

But the service offered answers to none of their questions, they said. “It is a normal church; it holds a normal mass, invokes God’s word and reads from the Holy Bible, not from any other book. The [bishop] talks about Christ, and we worship Christ. We attend for Christ, after all,” Abdel Sayed says. “As to whether [the archbishop] is dissident or not, those conflicts do not concern us.”

The mass may have been much like any other, but the church itself is far from a recognized Orthodox house of worship. St. Athanasius Church, its doors open to worshippers a mere 12 months, is the stronghold of the most controversial figure in the Coptic community today: Max Michel, or Maximus I, as he has taken to calling himself. In early July, the 57-year-old bishop proclaimed himself the Archbishop of Orthodox Christians of Egypt and the Middle East, an explicit challenge to the authority of His Holiness Pope Shenouda III, the 117th Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of St. Mark. Shenouda is the official head of the Coptic Orthodox Church, recognized by Copts around the world and by the Egyptian government.

Then, Michel went even further, announcing he was establishing a new Holy Orthodox Synod.

Mohamed Allouba The self-proclaimed Bishop Maximus I differs with the Coptic Orthodox Church on divorce, pilgrimage to Palestine and celibacy for bishops, among other points.

Dressed in papal robes, crosier in hand, Michel voices blunt criticism of Pope Shenouda and the administrative order of the Coptic Orthodox Church, which he maintains is similar to “medieval inquisition churches” in dealing with those who hold different opinions.

“Here, the Church belongs to the Middle Ages. All churches went through reforms. The whole world progressed except for people of the Orient,” contends Michel. “What happened is that one person came in and thought he represented an authority and that what he says is the truth with all due respect, [that person is] Pope Shenouda III.”

Born in Gharbia governorate in 1949, Michel graduated from the Coptic Orthodox Clerical College in 1973 and appears to have had a long history of conflict with Church authorities. Upon graduation, he began serving in Coptic churches as a deacon until 1982, when Church officials claim he started following doctrines deemed unacceptable by the Church. He has since been stripped of his status as a cleric in the Church, officials in the Holy Synod say.

Michel maintains that he wishes to promote an early Christian theology called “Patristic Theology,” which, he claims is ignored by the Coptic Church.

Michel argues he was not officially dismissed, but quit the church of his own accord after having received a warning from his bishop over an article he published in a newspaper run by Father Matta El-Meskeen. Matta El-Meskeen reportedly had disagreements with the Pope at the time.

Mohamed Allouba Michel has built St. Athanasius Church in Moqattam, where 50 worshippers attended Friday mass last month.

“The scapegoats [for the conflict between the Pope and Father Matta El-Meskeen] were tens, maybe hundreds. I was neither the first nor the last,” claims Michel.

Metropolitan Bishoy of Damietta, who also serves as the secretary-general of the Coptic Orthodox Holy Synod, counters that Michel is driven by a “lust for leadership.” He says Michel was dismissed from the Church because he subscribes to theological viewpoints (most of them advanced by Matta El-Meskeen) that contradict the beliefs of the Church.

Bishoy says Michel’s accusations against Pope Shenouda are mere “lies.”

“If trying [in Church theological courts] priests who are guilty of very dangerous vices that can harm the reputation of the Church is [a form] of inquisition, then we are proud of it. We monitor pastors to make sure that there is no corruption in the Church.”

As to Michel’s self-proclaimed mission of reviving ancient theology? Bishoy argues the rebel bishop is violating the principles of the very same theology he claims to be promoting.

After parting ways with the Coptic Church, Michel preached in private homes for 10 years until, he alleges, state authorities told him not to preach in houses and to form an association instead. He founded the St. Athanasius Association in 1992 and, despite the Church’s angry dismissal of the splinter group and orders that the Coptic faithful ignore Michel, the bishop has attracted a small but loyal following.

Several years ago, Michel moved to the United States to pursue post-graduate studies at St. Elias School of Orthodox Theology. He says he earned his doctorate in divinity in 2004.

In July 2005, he was ordained a bishop by the Holy Synod for the American Diaspora of True Orthodox Christians, a group of Old Calendarists based in Seward, Nebraska. (Old Calendarists are groups of Greek Orthodox Christians who insist on using the old Julian calendar rather than the Gregorian one. They have departed from mainstream Orthodox churches on several theological points, claiming that they protect the fundamentals of orthodoxy against innovation.)

This year, Michel was promoted to archbishop by the same synod and took the regal name of Maximus I.

But Michel refuses to call his synod an alternative to the Holy Coptic Senate, instead christening it “a parallel synod.”

“The idea is to have a voice with legal status,” he says. “The objective is reform, not division, and to make this voice reach the inside of [the Coptic Orthodox Church]” as a means of exerting pressure on the institution to embracing change.

Michel departs from the teachings of the Coptic Orthodox Church on three major points. While the Church insists that divorce is permissible only in cases in which one spouse embraces another faith or in the case of grievous adultery, Michel contends that there is a longer list of at least eight grounds on which the faithful can request a divorce.

“[Conversion and grievous adultery] are conditions for divorce as set by Pope Shenouda, not the Egyptian Church. As to the Egyptian Church, it had been following a list of reasons why marriage can be abrogated since the thirteenth century through Pope Kyrillos VI,” claims Michel, listing impotence, violence, contagious incurable diseases, monasticism and abandonment among the grounds on which divorce can be concluded by the Church.

Michel also condones pilgrimage to holy sites in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, a ritual banned by Shenouda, who has said the Church will not normalize relations with Israel until there is a lasting settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Michel also contends that there are no religious grounds prohibiting bishops from marrying. Michel himself is married and has two children; under Coptic canon law, only unmarried priests are eligible for appointment to the rank of bishop.

Interviewed last month, Michel declined to say how many people follow the teachings of his splinter group, but he says “thousands” of Copts are registered in the nine parishes that he claims to have founded in Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said, Beni Sueif, Assiut, Sohag and Fayoum.

So far, Michel has ordained two bishops and made them members of his synod. He plans to ordain several more this month.

The very fact that Michel was appointed and titled in the United States has raised eyebrows among both the Coptic community and Muslim intellectuals, many of whom regard it as yet another example of American meddling in local affairs — despite America’s long record of support for Coptic rights in Egypt.

Adding fuel to the fire was an official invitation for Michel to attend July 4th (Independence Day) celebrations at the US Embassy in Cairo. The incident begged questions about America’s position on the issue, and was interpreted by some as a sign of US support.

US Ambassador to Egypt Francis J. Ricciardone, Jr. subsequently issued a statement denying his country was supporting Michel. Michel himself insists that he has no backing from the US and maintains that his church is a “national” one. In the meantime, he is confident he will win official recognition for his church from the Egyptian Interior Ministry and lays his hopes on “the fairness” of his case and the country’s “respect for the law and religious freedom.”

Bishoy, meanwhile, says the July 4th invitation was meaningless because “those celebrations have no official or political dimensions.” The synod’s secretary-general is more concerned with the notion that Michel might seek recognition from the Egyptian government.

Georgette Kallini, a Coptic member of the governing National Democratic Party and a presidential appointee to the People’s Assembly, doesn’t think the US is supporting Michel. “I am not acquitting the US of attempts to instigate [sectarian] divisions among nations, but I can’t accuse it of doing so in this case,” she says.

Meanwhile, Kallini is confident that any attempt to challenge the authority of the Coptic Church would end in a stalemate. “Neither Max nor thousands of his followers could make the Church ‘turn a hair,’ to use the old phrase, or shake Egyptians’ faith in the Church.”

Kallini rejects Michel’s claims about the Church’s need to reform. “How could a person who could not understand the teachings of the Church reform the Church?” Kallini wonders. “The Coptic Church is one of the oldest churches in the world and it is not he who can reform it. Besides, if there had been a defect in the Church, it would not have lasted for 2,000 years.”

Coptic business leader and Al-Wafd Party heavyweight Mounir Fakhry Abdel-Nour rallied against Michel last month, calling him a “charlatan.”

“There is only one Church and only one pope,” an irate Abdel-Nour told reporters last month after insisting that the Coptic Church has always dealt with internal issues without the intervention of outsiders.

However, Kamal Zakher, a prominent Coptic writer and an expert on Church affairs, reads the conflict differently: “What made him [Michel] are the rigid policies of the Church. If there had been an open dialogue inside the Church, ‘Maximus’ would not be out today. I would say the Church is the one responsible for this situation, which proves that the Church needs now to open channels for dialogue with all those who disagree with its administration.”

In a statement published by the daily newspaper Al-Messa last month, President Hosni Mubarak declined to comment on the rift, saying he refused to interfere with religious matters.

“The Copts are able to solve their problems by themselves without intervention,” the president added.

Michel’s announcement of his “parallel” synod came amid concerns that the Coptic Church might be entering a time of transition after Pope Shenouda took ill last month and sought medical treatment in the United States. While he was there, a number of prominent bishops, including Bishoy, traveled to visit him, prompting speculation that the Church’s leadership was immersed in serious discussions about succession.

A day after his return, Shenouda held a press conference at the Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Abassiya at which he declared Michel’s ordination null.

“We recognize neither his ordination nor his new name. To us, he is still Max Michel. Not only that, we do not recognize those he ordained nor the religious rituals they perform,” the Pope told reporters on July 10.

Despite Shenouda’s safe return, succession remains an issue to some Coptic intellectuals. Bishoy dismisses that talk as “inappropriate,” claiming that the issue is not even on the Church’s agenda. “Inside the Church, nobody speaks about this issue unless he does not like the Pope. Everybody is worried about his health, and thank God that he came back safe. The Pope’s health is stable, and he is following a very precise treatment and diet,” he says.

Zakher couldn’t disagree more: “If the Church shuts up, who should speak up then? This is its future. There is a mix between what is emotional and what is objective. They think that talking about the future pope means wishing the death of [the incumbent]. An institution with the weight of the Church should not mix personal with objective matters. On the contrary: Everyone who is concerned about the Church, including the Pope himself, should address those issues.”

In the meantime, Zakher maintains that the Church bylaw that regulates the election of popes must be amended to ensure the participation of a larger number of Coptic voters.

Under the bylaw, which was issued in 1957, not all Copts have the right to participate in the selection of the pope. The electorate includes bishops, priests, former and current Coptic Cabinet members and MPs, Coptic notables and Coptic newspaper owners and editors. Once the vote count has been completed, there is a draw to choose the new pope from the three candidates with the highest number of votes.

Candidates must be at least 40 years old and have spent a minimum of 15 years in monastic life.

“We want to enlarge the electorate so it would be really representative of the Church’s followers,” Zakher says. “Also, it is important to abolish the draw, as it annuls the concept of election. Why hold elections in the first place?”

Sameh Fawzy, a journalist with the Coptic weekly Watani, suggests two alternatives to amend the electoral procedures: either a shift to the Catholic model, where the college of cardinals meet in conclave and elect the new pope, or allowing every Coptic Egyptian with a voting card to take part in the election of the pope.

Fawzy believes the first option is the most practical. “As the pope is the president of bishops, why does the Holy Assembly itself not choose him — particularly because the Church is not a local church anymore, but a global one with branches in the US, Africa, Asia and Latin America?” he wonders. “Thus, the Vatican model would be best.”

Bishoy dismisses the talk about the bylaw as “inappropriate.”

“The pope is the only person who has the right to talk about this issue if he wants,” Bishoy says. “However, it would be inappropriate for anyone else to speak about it, especially at this moment. We feel that the Church is in the hands of God and we trust God’s protection. So those who talk about these issues do not love the Pope deeply.”

The 83-year-old patriarch assumed the papacy in 1971 after the death of Pope Kyrillos VI. At the beginning of his mandate, Shenouda promised to heed calls demanding the promulgation of a more democratic bylaw, but that promise was never fulfilled and Shenouda shows no signs of doing so now. In an interview published in the July 15 issue of Al-Ahram, the ailing Pope was quoted as saying, “I do not know what they will do after me.”

In a column last month, Fawzy suggested the names of several potential candidates for the papacy, but says the man most likely to take over is 46-year-old Bishop Yoannis. Yoannis has served as private secretary to Pope Shenouda since 1993. Most recently, he was tapped to serve as a liaison with the Egyptian government. Fawzy’s list also includes Bishop Moussa of Youth Affairs, who is in his early 70s; Bishop Makarios, now in his early 50s and serving as assistant general bishop in Minya Governorate; and the 64-year-old Metropolitan Bishoy.

Decidedly not on the list is Michel, who also faces challenges on a more temporal plane: At press time, Michel was due in a Cairo-area court on July 30 for a first hearing in a lawsuit filed by a Coptic-led human rights organization that accused him of humiliating Pope Shenouda.

The suit is demanding LE 100 million in compensation.  et