Egypt’s Coptic Christians Choose New Pope

Bishop Tawadros was chosen as new Pope of Egypt’s Coptic Christians Sunday when a blindfolded altar boy picked his name from a chalice in a ceremony invoking divine guidance for the beleaguered minority.

The new Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of All Africa in the Holy See of St Mark the Apostle succeeds Pope Shenuda III, who died in March leaving behind a community anxious about its future under an Islamist-led government.

Tawadros, 60, a bishop in the Nile Delta province of Beheira, was among three potential candidates — the other two being Bishop Rafael, 54, a medical doctor and current assistant bishop for central Cairo, and Father Rafael Ava Mina, 70.

On November 18 Tawadros will assume his new position as spiritual head of the largest Christian minority in the Middle East, becoming the 118th pope in a line dating back to the origins of Christianity and to Saint Mark, the apostle and author of one of the four Gospels, who brought the new faith to Egypt.

Tawadros, whose given name Wagih Sobhy Baqi Suleiman, had come second in a vote last week for three final candidates.

Nearly 2,500 Coptic public officials, MPs, journalists and local councillors had voted to select the three finalists from an original group of five to succeed Shenuda, who died at the age of 88 after four decades on the papal throne.

The pope serves as the spiritual leader of the country’s Coptic Christians, who make up between six and 10 percent of Egypt’s 83-million population.