An Egyptian court yesterday sentenced 15 Muslim defendants to a year in jail, charged with attacking an unlicensed Coptic Church in a village south of Cairo.
G-d asks Pharaoh to 'let My people go'. But what is 'letting go'? This week, on Shabbat, January 27, we commemorate the liberation of Auschwitz. January 27 coincides with the weekly biblical reading where Pharaoh is finally forced into letting the Jewish people go.
In Exodus 2:11-12 we read that Moses, the man of God, killed an Egyptian. While this account in Moses' life has elicited different opinions and views from people, it also gives us valuable insights into our own callings and responses to God's call over our lives.
What worries many Christian leaders in the region is that Trump's overt support of persecuted Christians may cause them to be attacked even more, such is the hatred for him among Muslim fanatics.
Vice President Mike Pence pressured Egypt's leader over religious freedom and attacks on Christians on Saturday as the pair met on the first leg of a three-country tour of the Middle East.
Christian persecution across the Middle East has been one of Donald Trump's foreign policy themes attracting enthusiastic support from his nominal evangelical advisory board. But Michael is sceptical.
Christians in Egypt experienced an unprecedented spike in persecution last year, a watchdog's annual report claims, with more than 200 people driven from their homes and 128 killed.
The head of the Coptic Church, Pope Tawadros II, led midnight mass in the cathedral of Egypt's new administrative capital on Saturday, a service attended by President Abdel Fattah al Sisi.
Egypt's public prosecutor has filed murder charges against a man accused of killing 11 people in an attack on a Coptic church and a Christian-owned shop in a Cairo suburb last week, judicial sources said.