Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America Expresses Sincere Support for the Coptic Christians of Egypt

NEW YORK – At the Fall 2011 meet­ing of the Holy Eparchial Synod of the Greek Ortho­dox Arch­dio­cese of Amer­ica, the Most Rev­erend Mem­bers of the Holy Synod unan­i­mously adopted the fol­low­ing statement:

“On behalf of the faith­ful Clergy and Laity of the Greek Ortho­dox Arch­dio­cese of Amer­ica, we, the Mem­bers of the Holy Eparchial Synod, cog­nizant of our respon­si­bil­ity to speak the truth in love, hereby state and declare our sin­cere sup­port for the pious Cop­tic Chris­t­ian Faith­ful of Egypt, dur­ing this most dif­fi­cult tran­si­tion in the life of the Egypt­ian Nation.

Fur­ther­more, we deplore all acts of reli­gious vio­lence by any com­mu­nity or per­sons, know­ing that, as His All Holi­ness Ecu­meni­cal Patri­arch Bartholomew has stated so elo­quently, “A crime com­mit­ted in the name of reli­gion is a crime against religion.”

We call upon the lead­ers of all Chris­t­ian and Faith Com­mu­ni­ties, espe­cially our Ortho­dox Chris­t­ian Com­mu­ni­ties and the Ancient Ori­en­tal brethren, to sup­port the strug­gling Cop­tic Chris­tians of Egypt, and for all of the Chris­tians of the Mid­dle East, who are encoun­ter­ing extra­or­di­nary chal­lenges of diminu­tion and the restric­tion of the exer­cise of reli­gious lib­erty, in the face of ris­ing reli­gious fun­da­men­tal­ism and polit­i­cal retrenchment.”