Russian Orthodox Church builds on links with Egyptian Copts

Mohammad Hanafi

Aug 5, 2022

A picture taken on July 13, 2022, shows the Blessed Virgin Mary Church and St. Anba Reweiss in the Ahram Gardens district with the Great Pyramids at the Giza Pyramids necropolis in the background, on the southwestern outskirts of the Egyptian capital Cairo. — KHALED DESOUKI/AFP via Getty Images

CAIRO — Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Church recently donated Saint Menas Church in Giza governorate to the Russian Orthodox Church in Africa to serve as its new headquarters.

In a June 24 meeting between Patriarchal Exarch of the Russian Orthodox Church for North Africa Leonid Gorbachev and religious officials in Cairo, the Russian Orthodox Church had asked Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to dedicate a site in New Cairo for the church to build its own administrative and spiritual center in Africa.