The Alliance of Church and State: How Church and State Sustain Each Other’s Power at the Expense of Copts

By Alan Tadros

Following Sisi’s election in 2015, he attended Christmas Mass at the Cathedral. At the time, both national and international media widely reported that this marked the first time in modern Egyptian history that an Egyptian president had entered our Cathedral.

His visit and the emotions it triggered in me and my family seemed to affirm our decision of political alignment with this political trajectory back in 2013, just as the Pope had encouraged. It felt as though our investment was finally paying off because we felt recognized and acknowledged as stakeholders in the new state-building project.

His gesture, albeit small, signaled an era of Copts as full participants of the state, and therefore part of what it secured.

Subsequent reporting, however, showcased how Sisi was not the first Egyptian president to do such a gesture, as was revealed by Coptic Solidarity. It was the usual propaganda and it carried no substantive actions beyond it. The feeling of safety that accompanied his visit was short-lived as sectarian attacks have continued more than a decade after his staged public showoff at the Cathedral.

Sisi’s regime over the past 12 years revealed the structure beneath the spectacle. As public rhetoric expanded about unity and cohesion, sectarianism, structural discrimination and violence endured.

The alignment between church and state has grown stronger during this time as their interests converged. Both share a commitment to maintaining their stability, authority, hierarchy and disciplined order and share a fear of people rising and ceasing power.

Within a mutually reinforcing relationship, the Church, by aligning itself with the antithesis of the 2011 Revolution and by shielding the Sisi regime from dissent, despite continued persecution of its congregation, reflects a deliberate effort to curtail the Revolution and its emancipatory potential, while simultaneously insulating itself from internal dissent.

The Church has created an ability to assert extensive authority over the Coptic community and to cultivate deference to its leadership, which can be attributed to two primary factors. First, following the Infitah in the 1970s, the withdrawal of state-provided social services enabled the Church to assume this role on behalf of its people. Through its provision of medical clinics, and educational and social services, the Church has become deeply embedded in both the public and private spheres of Coptic lives, a position further reinforced by its authority over family laws governing copts

Second, and most importantly, the Church has weaponized Coptic persecution, which in turn has consolidated its authority as we explain later.

By the church assuming functions that cause material reliance, it produces authority. When the institution that offers medical care, educational access, and social mobility also shapes moral guidance and communal belonging, its influence deepens. It becomes woven into everyday survival. From a Marxist perspective, this moment marked a shift in the organization of social reproduction. The Church assumed functions once attributed to the state, embedding itself in the material lives of its congregants. Authority grew organically from service provision. Dependency and loyalty reinforced one another. The Church became indispensable and indispensability confers power.

In addition to using service provision, the Church exploited Coptic persecution to consolidate its authority, particularly amid the rise of organized sectarian attacks by some Islamist groups beginning in the 1970s.

This second factor emphasized the vulnerability of the community, therefore cultivating a climate of fear in which questioning the very institution responsible for protection was unthinkable. The Church goes as far as to assert that Copts are a “Church of Martyrs,” and even glorifies sectarian killings as martyrdom, so that the Church not only creates deference to lines of questioning on the issue of sectarian violence, but so it can also “ultimately absolve the government from its duty to prevent these deaths altogether,” and simultaneously absolving itself from its responsibility to safeguard its congregants.

This not only reinforced reliance on the Church for both material and social needs, but also insulated Copts from alternative ideas and forms of organization which are outside the Church’s authority, and therefore potentially dangerous to this said authority.

From Confrontation to Alignment

In August 2013, Pope Tawadros II publicly criticized then-President Morsi, accusing his administration of failing to protect a “national symbol” following the attack on the Papal Cathedral. He further asserted that it was the State’s responsibility to protect its citizens.

Such a fierce statement appeared to signal the emergence of a Coptic leader who acknowledges the harsh realities faced by Copts and is willing to confront the State’s might and power directly, regardless of potential personal consequences. However, subsequent developments have complicated such a high-esteemed perception of him.

Following the rise of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the Pope’s public posture shifted markedly. His rhetoric has increasingly mirrored the language of the Egyptian State, regurgitating their tired slogans that usually start or end with one of these three words: unity, strengthening, and nation.

Which has come at the expense of any attention or action towards the sectarian violence and discrimination experienced by Copts.

Justice Deferred: The Politics of “Reconciliation”

Just a couple of months ago, on October 22, 2025, in Nazlat Jelf in el Minya Governorate, a mob coalesced and indiscriminately attacked Christian homes and properties following rumours that there was a relationship between a young Christian man and a young Muslim woman.

Local law enforcement’s response was lethargic to say the least. Officers did not intervene effectively to prevent the escalation of violence and only acted to restore order once the mob’s instantiated needs were somewhat met.

As is conventional, a customary tribunal was held to initiate reconciliatory discussions between the residents of the village, the mayor, senior security officials, the village priest and the young man’s grandfather. The tribunal’s decision, unsurprisingly, was to fine the Christian family one million Egyptian pounds, and ordered them to sell their property and to vacate the village within five years. It further entailed an “agreement” to continue judicial proceedings against the young man.

The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) has rightfully released statements and studies condemning the current misuse of customary reconciliation mechanisms, arguing that they often shield perpetrators from accountability, failing to protect opressed groups and minorities such as Copts from accessing genuine justice, and even creating an environment in which victims feel intimidated or fear legal repercussions for pursuing formal complaints.

According to EIPR’s report on the matter, like the Nazlat Jelf case, these tribunals frequently result in the punishment of the Coptic party, who is often the victim, all while shielding the perpetrator of sectarian violence from meaningful accountability. For example, the Public Prosecution often uses the tribunals as grounds to halt criminal prosecution, even in cases where prosecution is mandatory under the Code of Criminal Procedure.

Rather than serving as neutral mechanisms of conflict resolution, such sessions have been used by the State in ways that reinforce existing power imbalances, going as far as acting in opposition to the law and Constitution by collectively punishing Coptic families and communities in order to appease the State manufactured majoritarian preferences.

State-Sanctioned Impunity

Although a number of arrests were made after the attacks on October 24, such actions offer no assurance of justice, or even accountability. The case of seventy year-old Soad Thabet illustrates this problem perfectly. In 2016, she was forcibly removed from her home by a mob of men, stripped naked, and paraded in her village of Karam Abou Omair, also in el Minya. This was apparently revenge for rumours alleging that her son had been having an affair with the former wife of one of the attackers, who is Muslim.

Although three of the attackers were arrested and brought to trial, despite the existence of video evidence documenting their assault, they were acquitted in 2020. This outcome not only falls short of delivering justice, but also reflects the pervasive involvement of state institutions at multiple levels in processes that ultimately deny minorities, such as Copts, equal access to legal protection.

Incidents of collective violence like that of Soad’s and in Nazlat Jelf, are unfortunately not isolated occurences, and constitute a daily source of insecurity for Copts, particularly those residing in rural areas. The frequent acquittals of perpetrators, or the state’s outright refusal to prosecute sectarian attacks, effectively legalizes violence, but only when it is committed against minorities.

The Altar and the Palace: Two Sides of the Same Coin

Copts have effectively been left with no one willing to confront their persecution. On the one hand, the State refuses to acknowledge the structural nature of sectarian violence, while the Church, which claims to speak and advocate on behalf of its congregation, increasingly mirrors the language and priorities of the State.

For his part, our so-called “Father of Fathers” not only disregards our perils, he even goes as far as publicly denying that such issues exist. In 2018, when questioned by members of the diaspora regarding his inaction, he mockingly responded that “There are no attacks on the Copts and the news that Copts receive in the diaspora happens to get reversed in the Atlantic Ocean.”

While the President for his part, has continued to visit annual Christmas Mass at the Cathedral, while ignoring Easter because it conflicts with Jesus’ story in Islam, yet all we have seen is the delivery of expansive speeches emphasizing, yes you guessed it: unity, strengthening, and nation, yet his theatrical performances have not translated into structural reforms addressing systemic discrimination by all levels of government.

The case of Saod Thabet perfectly illustrates Sisi’s empty theatrics. Following her public assault, state action only occurred after Bishop Macarios, also known as the “Lion of El Saeed,” publicly and tirelessly pleaded her case across all platforms, including television and radio, demanding for any sort of accountability or justice.

In response to his campaign, Sisi issued a public apology to Soad and assured her that her attackers would be brought to justice. Yet we know how that case unfolded; it only reinforced the longstanding concerns about impunity on sectarian attacks and the vested interest of the State to ensure the continuation of such attacks.

The Pope’s response to Soad’s case is even more egregious than that of the State’s. While the actions of the State and the regime are anticipated since they align with established patterns, the actions of this so-called leader who was entrusted to protect us is not-unlike that of Cain to Abel.

Following the death of the sitting metropolitan bishop of el Minya governate, Bishop Macarios was widely viewed as his natural successor. Instead, in an effort to marginalize Macarios’ confrontational advocacy and to appease the State, the governorate was split into three sections each assigned to a different bishop, effectively cutting Macarios off from any leadership position, all while sending a warning signal to others as to what the consequences would be for state dissent.

Containing the Revolution and its Threat

The 2011 Revolution marked an incredible political awakening of the masses, for the first time citizens were allowed to openly engage in political debate and even question all forms of authority and entrenched social and political structures. This is evidenced by the story of Gasser El-Dabea who shares how his and his schoolmates erupted in political debates and discussions for the very first time, as the Revolution was occurring right outside the walls of their school.

Copts were not immune to this political awakening, as is evidenced by the Coptic youth who took to Maspero to protest on October 9th, 2011, which Pope Shenouda III at the time was vehemently opposed to publicly. With this political awakening, with free and open discussions between citizens as well as the open challenge on all forms of authority, lay a danger for the Coptic Church, its leadership and its absolute control over Coptic opinions and lives for the first time in its history.

Once Copts began to question the authority of the State and its institutions, what would prevent its congregation from similarly questioning the Church’s authority? The prospect of such lines of questioning threatened the Church’s capacity to maintain influence over how its adherents think, behave, and define accepted truths. In particular, if Copts were to conceive of themselves as primarily Egyptian citizens, rather than as members of a distinct religious minority, they might begin to imagine alternative social and political arrangements that fall outside the Church’s sphere of authority.

More importantly, in the years following the 2011 Revolution until Sisi took power, political discussions were flowing freely in many Egyptian homes, cafes, schools, universities, and even churches. This freedom to openly question things directly endangered the Church’s leadership because it could have led to congregants questioning the decisions of priests and bishops, questioning the processes of priests’ ascension to leadership positions, possibly even demanding democratic processes such as elections of bishops, the power to remove them, the transparency of financial records, and the involvement in the Church’s financial decisions.

Once free and open discussions had been allowed to flourish, Egyptians of all religions began not only questioning authority, they began questioning the State’s role in upholding the patriarchy and misogyny, as is evidenced by the revival of feminist discourses since 2011. Within this context, what would have prevented Copts from then looking inward and questioning deeply minsogynst Church rules such as the exclusion of women from priesthood and, consequently, positions of institutional authority.

Had the Revolution’s emancipatory sentiments been allowed to flourish, the bourgeois class, including the Coptic one, which had upheld the old regime and enjoys full benefits under the current one, would have been challenged and dismantled. Yet this bourgeois Coptic class plays a crucial role in sustaining the Church’s leadership materially. Therefore, the preservation of existing class relations aligns with the interests of the Church, further explaining the Church’s opposition to revolutionary sentiments.

In shielding itself from dissent to protect its own authority, the Church has simultaneously socialized its congregation to extend the same deference to the State, normalizing the suppression of critique across both spheres. In turn, the State sustains and sponsors the Church, allowing it to continue its influence on Coptic lives in order to maintain Coptic loyalty to the regime. This mutually reinforcing relationship between them has limited the transformative possibilities opened by 2011, and the full emancipation of all Egyptians.