Egyptian army begins restoring churches damaged in 2013 uprising

Coptic leaders in Egypt are praising a new government effort to restore churches destroyed by the Muslim Brotherhood nearly three years ago. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, then defense minister, promised the Armed Forces would fix them, but many remain in ruins.

The Muslim Brotherhood and other supporters of former President Mohamed Morsi vandalized, looted, and burned dozens of churches, Christian businesses, and homes after his ouster in August 2013, according to Watani International. Al-Sisi led that coup and assumed the presidency, but Christians bore part of the blame because many supported him.

Coptic leader Anba Pimen, bishop of Qous and Naqada and leader of the Crises Committee in the Holy Synod of the Coptic Orthodox Church, said the army has only restored 10 churches so far.

“The Church has already restored 15 churches with private funds in order to ease the load on the Armed Forces,” Pimen said. “But there are still 52 churches that await restoration, since the scale of ruin they incurred is far above our ability to restore them.”

In a rare Christmas Eve visit to a Coptic church, St. Mark’s Cathedral in Cairo, al-Sisi acknowledged and apologized for the delay.

“We have been late in restoring and fixing what has been burned,” al-Sisi said. “This year everything will be fixed. Please accept our apologies for what happened. God willing, by next year there won’t be a single church or house that is not restored. … Merry Christmas.”

Since then, the Armed Forces engineering unit has cooperated with Coptic leaders to start completing the repairs, Ahram Online reported.

“I appreciate so much the president’s promise to continue the restoration process this year,” Bishop Macarius of Minya told Ahram Online.

Macarius also thanked “the Armed Forces for their effort in renovating the churches to return them to the way they were before the attacks, or even better, and also the efforts of the Muslims who protected churches from attacks and provided refuge for their Christian neighbors to save their lives.”

Al-Sisi also recently approved the construction of two new churches. But Egyptian law still requires more government permission for churches than mosques in the Muslim-majority nation.

Despite the recent good news, religious minorities in Egypt still face persecution and “repressive laws that restrict freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief,” according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Blasphemy laws are still in need of reform.

“Nothing has really changed in terms of our rights and freedoms,” said Michelle Labib, a 45-year-old Christian computer programmer who lives in Cairo. “It is annoying how they make him out to be a hero when our lives have not improved in any way.”

Currently Egyptian authorities are prosecuting four Coptic teens for “insulting Islam,” over a 30-second video they made to mock ISIS beheadings. A verdict is expected soon, according to World Watch Monitor.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.