Egyptian president Abdel Fattah El Sisi offered words of assurance to the country’s Coptic Orthodox Christians on Saturday as they held Christmas Eve mass at a massive new cathedral.
El Sisi wished a merry Christmas, telling that the country would prevail over the extremists.
“You are our family, you are from us, we are one and no one will divide us,” the president said in short speech before the liturgy led by Pope Tawadros II.
“We, with the grace of God, are offering a message of peace and love from here, not just to Egyptians or to the region, but to the entire world,” Mr El Sisi said, drawing ululations and chants from some of the congregation and visitors.
The new cathedral, named Christ’s Nativity, is located in Egypt’s new Administrative Capital, a 45-billion-dollar, under-construction project some 45 kilometres east of Cairo. The Christmas Eve mass will consecrate the new cathedral and mark the first time in living memory that the liturgy is not held at St Mark’s Cathedral, the seat of the orthodox church in central Cairo.
The new cathedral can house up to 9,000 worshipers and is touted as the largest in the Middle East.
Mr El Sisi arrived shortly after nightfall, as silver lights twinkled on the cathedral’s dome piercing the surrounding darkness. As a former army chief turned president, he is viewed by most of Egypt’s Christians as their protector and ally in the face of extremists.
The cathedral’s bells tolled as Pope Tawadros received Mr El Sisi outside the cathedral and they walked inside together. Women ululated in jubilation and many in the congregation waved Egyptian flags or threw white rose buds at the smiling president, who waved back and shook hands with some of them.
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