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Pope Shenouda III obituary
Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria, who has died aged 88 after suffering from prostate cancer, was for four decades the spiritual leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church, the largest Christian community in the Middle East. In his native Egypt he was patriarch to 7 to 11 million Copts – the government of the predominantly Muslim country giving a lower estimate than the church's – and another 4 million worldwide.
Coptic congregants, worshipping in a tradition that goes back to the earliest days of Christianity, held "Baba Shenouda" in high regard. Yet his pontifical reign was marked by controversy. While inter-communal strife saw thousands of Copts leave Egypt, critics blamed him for politicising his office and exacerbating matters, either through over-assertiveness or timidity. Egypt's 2011 uprising threw such tensions into starker relief.
Ten years into his papacy, Shenouda had famously fallen out with President Anwar Sadat; in September 1981 he was summarily dethroned and banished to an ancient desert monastery. Reinstated by Sadat's successor, Hosni Mubarak, in January 1985, the Coptic pope, 117th in a line of leaders that began with St Mark, achieved considerable successes. The ordination of deaconesses was resumed after an interval of several centuries, and he brought women into theological colleges and communal councils, though he was against them becoming priests.
