Mohamed Hamd el-Gamal, former head of the State Council, stated that Egypt's Interior Ministry and the Muslim Brotherhood have adopted a plan to eliminate Copts and media figures supportive of Copts in the country.

Gamal added that the detention of Coptic activists who had been injured during the skirmish was a reflection of the current discrimination Copts experience by those in power.

Gamal noted that the authorities have not arrested those people who attacked St. Mark's Cathedral, although cameras captured a large number of them carrying firearms during the attack. more >>

Last week in Egypt, Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II delivered an unprecedented condemnation of the escalating religious attacks there against Coptic Christians: "The church has been a national symbol for 2,000 years," he told a television interviewer. "It has not been subjected to anything like this even during the darkest ages. . . . There has been no positive and clear action from the state, but there is a God. The church does not ask for anyone's protection, only from God." Tawadros's appeal was prompted by an unprecedented attack on Cairo's St. Mark Cathedral two days earlier.

A week ago last Sunday, Copts filing out of an evening funeral service at the Cathedral were set upon by a 200-strong Muslim mob that hurled firebombs, live ammunition, tear gas, and rocks at them while they were still trapped inside the Cathedral compound. This reportedly resulted in one Copt, Mahrous Hanna Ibrahim, being killed from a gunshot and in dozens of others being wounded. One Muslim also died after reportedly falling from a ladder, which he had climbed in order to destroy the Cathedral's security camera. The duration of the assault was five hours.

Police were slow to arrive on the scene and when they finally did, they either failed to act or joined in the attack on the Christians at the Cathedral. A reporter with the American-based Morning Star News reported seeing one police officer sitting in his car who "fired a tear-gas grenade into the cathedral compound" where the Christian mourners were pinned down. more >>

Researchers have recently revealed their methods for determining that the Gospel of Judas, a fragmented Coptic text traced to Egypt in approximately A.D. 280, is in fact free of forgeries.

Daniel B. Wallace, professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary, contends that although the text may in fact be free of forgeries, it carries no historic credibility, and proves to be a fake gospel that paints a heretic view of Jesus.

The text, which was discovered in Egypt in the 1970s, was analyzed in a 2006 National Geographic Society investigation by a team of researchers led by microscopist Joseph Barabe of McCrone Associates in Illinois to determine if the ancient Egyptian text raised any red flags regarding forgeries. more >>

The Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of Holy See of St. Mark the Apostle, H.H. Pope Tawadros II, has accused the Egyptian regime and security forces for failing to prevent the sectarian incidents of El-Khosos and St. Mark's Cathedral.

The patriarch added that security forces came up short in performing their duty, as it was possible to contain the situation by making the right decision to protect innocent citizens. Due to the state of unrest and idleness, forces instead chose the "leniency of law."

Pope Tawadros highlighted the negligence and complacency with which the St. Mark's Cathedral attacks were handled crossed all lines. He also pointed out that the events had reached a chaotic state and placed the responsibility on the state and President Mahmoud Morsi. more >>

The Egyptian Center for Development Studies (ECDS) has called for Coptic Members of Parliament in the Shura Council to resign in protest against the siege of St. Mark's Cathedral.

The center also called for "holding President Mohamed Morsi accountable for failing to protect his people," referring to "the failure of the state to protect its citizens and places of worship, especially the cathedral, which is seen a symbol by the Orthodox Copts in Egypt and all over the world."

The center also demanded that the interior minister, Mohamed Ibrahim, be fired and have charges levied against him "for failing to address the events of the cathedral." more >>

In the wake of the attacks on St. Mark's Cathedral in Cairo, religious leaders are warning that their country is in a state of imbalance and close to falling into total chaos.

"Egypt is now in a state of political, social and religious imbalance," associate patriarch of the Catholic Church H.G. Bishop Yohanna Qolta, told Mideast Christian News. "Where the prestige of state and law has fallen, and become unchecked and anarchic."

"According to the presidential statement, the Copts perhaps began throwing stones from inside the cathedral, and they were in a state of grief, but does that offset some young people going, masked, from police armored vehicles," the bishop continued. more >>