CAIRO: Lawyer Naguib Gobraeil, head of Egyptian Union for Human Rights Organization, suggested banning wives of bishops and priests from taking public jobs, raising controversy inside Egypt’s Orthodox Church.
Gobraeil proposed that clergymen’s wives join church-based jobs in church schools and hospitals instead.
He justified his proposal citing rumors about the wives’ conversion to Islam, most recently the case of the wife of the Mowas Cathedral Priest, Kamilia Zakher, who, it was revealed, turned out to have left her husband after a marital dispute and had not converted.
“I presented my suggestion to the Pope who promised to look into it,” said Gobraeil. “Priests’ wives enjoy a certain social and religious position that makes them vulnerable to Islamization and harassment at work places.”
The controversy also included the clergy’s salaries, about which Gobraeil issued a statement on Tuesday saying that the Pope has agreed to raise salaries to face increasing financial burdens.
However, Bishop Segeous Sergeous, deputy of the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchy, denied any such decision.
“There have been no decisions regarding increased salaries. If there was any discussion of this issue I would have been the first to know,” he said.
Priest Salib Matta Sawiris, member of the Orthodox Church’s Ecclesiastical Council, described the proposal as a “call for isolation.”
“A priest’s wife is first and foremost an Egyptian citizen,” said Sawiris. “The church has no right to deprive her from taking on any occupation she chooses. Isolated incidents should not lead to generalization. Are we going to imprison all priests’ wives because of individual incidents?” he told Daily News Egypt, adding that clergymen’s wives serve the church before marriage, and they continue to do so after getting married.
