Coptic Orthodox Church delegation returned from Jerusalem after the initial round of negotiations between the Coptic Orthodox Church and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church to discuss the renovation of Deir El Sultan monastery in the Old City.
His Holiness Pope Tawadros has sent the Holy Synod secretary Anba Raphael General Bishop of downtown Cairo Churches, Anba Beyman Bishop of Nakada and Qus and coordinator of relations between the Coptic and Ethiopian churches and Anba Youssef Bishop of south USA to negotiate with the Ethiopian church delegation on Deir Sultan problem especially that the monastery needs restoration work. Negotiations were held in the presence of the Egyptian embassy representatives and the Ethiopian delegation represented by the Bishop of the Ethiopian Church in the Holy Land and the representatives of the Ethiopian embassy and the presence of security representatives and the patriarch of the Greek Orthodox as being the church property is severely damaged by non-restoring the monastery, the Coptic Church delegation display its’ views on the issue of Deir al-Sultan and demanded a comprehensive protocol to separate the ownership and possession and be given the priority for restoration according to the decisions of the Court and the law of the cuurent status and the Coptic Church delegation wait for the Ethiopian church answers to the questions and inquiries made by the Egyptian delegation.
Sultan Saladin granted it to the Coptic Church in recognition of the national role that the Copts played. The Coptic Church has hosted the Abyssinian monks at the monastery for more than three centuries, but after the six days war in 1967 Israel seized the monastery and expelled the Egyptian monks, handing it over to the Ethiopians . The Coptic Church resorted to the Israeli court which ruled that the monastery should be returned to the Egyptian church, but no ruling has been enforced
