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‘We know the souls of the people who have been murdered’: Brisbane Coptics weep for faithful killed in deadly Palm Sunday bombings

by Mark Bowling
11 April 2017 - Updated on 1 April 2021
Reading Time: 2 mins read
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Deadly bombing in Coptic Orthodox church

Bombings: Security personnel investigate the scene of a bomb explosion on April 9 inside the Orthodox Church of St George in Tanta, Egypt. That same day an explosion went off outside the Cathedral of St Mark in Alexandria where Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II was presiding over the Palm Sunday service. Photo: CNS

Deadly bombing in Coptic Orthodox church
Bombings: Security personnel investigate the scene of a bomb explosion on April 9 inside the Orthodox Church of St George in Tanta, Egypt. That same day an explosion went off outside the Cathedral of St Mark in Alexandria where Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II was presiding over the Palm Sunday service. Photo: CNS

HUNDREDS of Coptic Orthodox families in Brisbane began Holy Week with heartfelt prayers for loved ones after deadly church bombings in Egypt.

“It is painful. It is tragedy. It is part of the pain that Jesus our Christ carried for us,” Egyptian-born Fr Bishoy Wassef, from St Mark and St George Coptic Orthodox Church, Strathpine, said.

“Now we pray, and we know the souls of the people who have been murdered.”

Coptic churches across Brisbane and the Gold Coast held daily prayer services during Holy Week.

Odette Tewfik, a social worker for the Egyptian community in Brisbane, said she knew personally the pain and worry about bombings and attacks on Egypt’s minority Coptic Orthodox community.

She arrived in Australia from Cairo in 1989, but her parents and brother remained there.

“It’s tearing your heart, especially when you see that one of them could be your relative, and it is the link between you and your original country,” Ms Tewfik said.

“They were praying. They’re not fighting.”

Ms Tewfik said her parents were praying in St Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral last December when the chapel next to cathedral was bombed killing 29 people.

She said the persecution and fear felt by Coptic Orthodox Christians was growing.

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“It’s a terrible feeling, when the only peaceful place is the church, and now people are scared to send their children to Sunday school,” she said.

“Even when you are walking in the streets now, if you are wearing a cross, fanatics will spit in your face.”

Ms Tewfik believes the Australian Government should accept more immigrants from Egypt.

Fr Wassef said tragic bombings pulled Christians together.

“We can see the Heaven more clearly after what happened,” he said.

“In Egypt whenever these things happen it never pushes the people away from the Church – the numbers become multiplied.

“It strengthens the relations between Christians.

“There is no Egyptian, no Iraqi, no Australians. We are all one washed with the blood of Jesus Christ and it makes us as one.”

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Mark Bowling

Mark is the joint winner of the Australian Variety Club 2000 Heart Award for his radio news reporting in East Timor, and has also won a Walkley award, Australia’s most-respected journalism award. Mark is the author of ‘Running Amok’ that chronicles his time as a foreign correspondent juggling news deadlines and the demands of being a husband and father. Mark is married with four children.

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