Abu-Fana Monastery in Mallawi

[Red]

Abu-Fana Monastery in Mallawi
Till when will the Egyptian Officials ignore what’s happening?
From “The Free Copts”, Friday January 11, 2008

· More than twenty people armed with automatic weapons surround the Monastery for hours in what a monk described as “a war-like aggression”

· The Monastery has applied, four years ago, to erect a fence around the Monastery and received no response from the authorities.

· The District Attorney’s office questions the victims while the attackers are free to threaten the Monastery’s Monks

· Concerns by the Monks about a possible repeat of the Kosheh’s massacre (where tens of Copts were murdered by Muslim fanatics in the village of Kosheh) and questions about the authorities failure to permit the construction of the fence to protect the Monastery

This is hardly the first time that the Abu-Fana Monastery in Mallawi’s village of Kasr Hor, in the Governate of Menia, was in the news. On March 19, 2006, the head of the Council of the City of Mallawi, General Sa’eed Osman Ismael, issued a demolition order to the guest quarters within the Monastery to be executed within five days of the Notice should the Monastery fail to carry out the order. The Monastery rejected the order and ever since was subjected to repeated attacks led by a “Samir Louly”, a member of the extremist Gamaa’t Islamia, who’d previously been arrested for such membership, but has since become a security forces collaborator.

Since the beginning of 2008, Louly, aided by his son Abd-Allah Samir, have fired shots at the Monastery for two hours (on January 1) followed by January 8 attack when more than twenty people attacked and terrorised the Monks in the Monastery. The complaint by the Monks to the authorities resulted in the authorities apprehending and investigating the victims, father Makari Abu Fana and Pishoy Abu Fana, whilst failing to apprehend and question the criminals who conducted the attacks, all of whom are well known to the authorities.

When asked about what they considered as motive for such attacks, the Monks stated that when the authorities failed to act to protect lives and property of the Monastery, failed to effectively deal with and punish the criminals in earlier attacks, it effectively sent a clear message to those criminals that it condoned such attacks and aggression against the Monastery, allowing these criminals to attempt to claim the Monastery’s land especially the part which is not fenced.

It is of note that Archaeologists and Historians believe that the Monastery, located about four kilometres west of the town of Hor, is one the earlier, if the earliest, of the world’s Monasteries, was established by St Abu Fana around the fourth century AD.

For additional information please visit
http://mallawi-demet.org/Arabic/abofana/menu.html