AIRO (Reuters) – Egyptian prosecutors are investigating the death of a monk who was from the monastery where a bishop was murdered in July, a case that has rattled the biggest church in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
Zenon al-Makari, 45, died while being rushed to hospital after suffering severe stomach pains. He had served as a confessional priest for one of two defrocked monks charged with the murder of the Bishop Epiphanius on July 29, fellow monks said.<\/p>\n
A Church spokesman said Zenon had suffered a \u201csudden health crisis\u201d and prosecutors were investigating the cause of death.<\/p>\n
Zenon was one of six monks that Coptic Church authorities had relocated away from the Abu Makar (Saint Macarius) Monastery some 110 km (70 miles) northwest of Cairo, a month after the murder there, on Aug. 25.<\/p>\n
Monks at the al-Muhharaq Monastery in Assiut, where Zenon was transferred, said he had been distressed and declined to mix with other monks.<\/p>\n
He was on a list of witnesses scheduled to testify in the trial of the two former monks, which opened last week, according to a lawyer involved in the trial and a security source in Beheira province, where the hearing is taking place.<\/p>\n
The murder of Bishop Epiphanius had rocked the Church in a country where Christians make up an estimated 10 percent of the 96 million population.<\/p>\n
Pope Tawadros immediately ordered a freeze on accepting new monks, a ban on monks leaving monasteries without permission, and a ban on clergy using social media.<\/p>\n
Judicial sources said one of the monks accused of the killing, Wael Saad, known by his monastic name Isaiah al-Makari, had confessed during questioning to the murder.<\/p>\n
Egyptian media reported this week that Saad, at his first hearing, had denied killing Epiphanius and said he had confessed under pressure.<\/p>\n
In a statement last month, the prosecution said Saad had long had differences with his superiors, who had on one occasion investigated him for breaking monastery traditions.<\/p>\n
The second monk accused of involvement in the murder, Ramon Rasmi Mansour, threw himself from the monastery roof this month. He has been treated in a Cairo hospital where he has also been questioned, judicial sources told Reuters.<\/p>\n
(Corrects month of murder in paragraph 1, says Zenon was confessional priest for one of the charged monks, not two in paragraph 2.)<\/p>\n
AIRO (Reuters) – Egyptian prosecutors are investigating the death of a monk who was from the monastery where a bishop was murdered in July, a case that has rattled the biggest church in the Middle East. Zenon al-Makari, 45, died while being rushed to hospital after suffering severe stomach pains. He had served as a confessional priest for one of… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1999"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2037,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1999\/revisions\/2037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}