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November 4, 2012
By Jayson Casper
CAIRO, Egypt (AWR) – Mid-Sunday morning, after three days of fasting, the Coptic Orthodox Church selected Bishop Tawadros of the Diocese of Beheira to be its 118th patriarch, succeeding Pope Shenouda II, who passed away in March of 2012. Tawadros’ name was drawn from a wax-sealed glass ball by a blindfolded child, supervised by the acting patriarch Bishop Pachomius.
Immediately after holding the paper with Tawadros’ name aloft for all to see, Pachomius then removed the other names from the remaining two balls to prevent allegations of fraud. Muhammad Hassanain Haykal, a prominent journalist, had disputed the selection of Pope Shenouda in 1971, alleging all three ballots bore the same name. Such a claim was not likely, but it resulted in doubts.
Bishop Tawadros was born in 1952 and is a graduate of Alexandria University with a degree in pharmaceutical sciences. In 1997 he was appointed as an auxiliary bishop to serve with Bishop Pachomius in Beheira, now the acting patriarch. The lot was cast in his favor on his birthday, November 4, 2012.
Hānī Labīb, the managing director of the Center for Intercultural Dialogue and Translation, believes this association played a large role in his election as one of three candidates for the altar lot.
‘Tawadros is the disciple of Bishop Pachomius and everyone has loved how as acting patriarch he handled Coptic issues since the death of Pope Shenouda,’ stated Labīb.
‘People trust him because of this association.’
Labīb was one of 2411 electors in the process of designating the successor to Pope Shenouda, each of whom could choose up to three candidates to advance to the altar lot. He stated Tawadros received the second highest number of votes – 1623 – trailing Bishop Raphael of Central Cairo, who received 1980. The third candidate was Fr. Raphael Ava Mina of the Monastary of St. Mina outside Alexandria. Esteemed as a disciple of Shenouda’s predecessor Pope Cyril VI, he received 1530 votes.
These three candidates easily outpaced the two eliminated candidates, Fr. Seraphim and Fr. Pachomius, both from the Monastery of the Syrian in Wadī Natrūn. These received 680 and 305 respectively. Labīb stated they both served abroad, in the United States and Italy, and thus were not very well known to electors, most of whom were from Egypt.
Bishop Tawadros is also appreciated as one who reached out to the youth of his diocese, and kept good relations between local Muslims and Christians. He is also said to have decent relationships with Islamists.
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