Living with Enemies: 21 Coptic Martyrs
This post is part of a series exploring the lives of people attempting to live a life true to Jesus’ example and teaching in the midst of serious enmity. The first post focused on Jesus and the most recent one on Iraqi priest Saad Sirop Hanna.
On February 15, 2015, ISIL released a video of blood mingling with sea water on a Libyan beach.
Moments before, 21 men had been beheaded with the name of Jesus on their lips.
Like many others before them, these 21 Copts¹ — Egyptian Christians — had traveled to Libya as migrant workers to earn some much-needed money for their families.
Though the Arab spring was raging there, they took the risk as their need was great.
The climate in Libya, which had been quite tolerant before, turned increasingly anti-Christian with the entrance of groups such as ISIL in the chaos.
Christians were murdered, churches burned, but the 21 still did not leave, because their work stay had not yet finished and their families counted on the money.
Then one night, ISIL came, and the rest is history, perversely preserved for the world in slick HD format.
Little is known of what these men said, thought and did while in Libya. They were after all only simple farmers without interest to most people until their public martyrdom.
Yet they immediately became the national pride of the Coptic Orthodox Church.
Paradoxically, the video that was supposed to instil terror into the world, generated hope and pride in those who saw the courage of these men.
The Metropolitan — a religious leader — of these men said:
“Had the killers had any idea of the significance this video would have for the Coptic Church, they probably would not have made it. Far from being intimidating, it gives us courage. It shows us the martyrs’ heroic bravery, and the fact that they spent their last moments alive in prayer proves the strength of their faith.”
Even the families of these men in Upper Egypt were watching the video over and over again. A visitor wrote about this:
What would the murderers say about their video being shown like this? Would it surprise them to see that these people had managed to turn an attempt at triggering boundless terror into something entirely different?
While the families certainly had feared for the 21 men during their captivity, and grieved at their death, joy eventually outlasted these emotions.
They drew strength from the 21 men’s perseverance in the face of death.
And these families simply forgave the murderers and never spoke of revenge or retribution.
The Coptic Orthodox Archbishop of London wrote the following about these events:
This tragedy is reminiscent of Christ, who was laid bare on the cross at Golgotha, made a spectacle for all to see and mock. Likewise, evil appeared to have triumphed as Jesus gave up His spirit on the cross; His resurrection was to take the world by surprise and give a gift that none other than God Himself could have presented through His willing sacrifice. The paradox of Christianity is most evident in the sacrifice on the cross and any martyrdom that follows it: “Death is swallowed up in victory. O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?”
If anything, the 21’s families embody this word: “Death, where is your sting?”
Notes
- Actually, 20 Egyptian Copts and one man from sub-Saharan Africa. Yet the Coptic Orthodox church speaks of “the 21 Coptic martyrs” and has canonized this 21st man along with the other 20, making him “one of its own sons.” Thus, out of respect for the 21st victim and the decision of the Coptic Orthodox Church, I refer to this man as a Copt.
