AFRICA/EGYPT - Fire in a church, the imam launches the SOS and calls for help from the mosque's loudspeakers

Tuesday, 12 June 2018 middle east   oriental churches   islam   dialogue  

CoptsToday

Shubra al Khaymah (Agenzia Fides) - The flames of an accidental fire burst in a church in the middle of the night which led to the imam of the nearby mosque to use the speakers of the Muslim place of worship to sound the alarm and call everyone to intervene to extinguish the flames. This is what happened in Shubra al Khaymah, in the northern area of the great urban area of Cairo, during the night between 10 and 11 June. Around midnight, the flames reached the wooden scaffolding put up for the works of reconstruction around the Orthodox Coptic church of Anba Makar. The alarm in the neighborhood was launched by Sheikh El Jamea, imam of the nearby mosque, who called the population to intervene to try and extinguish the fire. Among the first to rush and to try to contain the damage caused by the flames were many young Muslims who were eating together.
Anba Morcos, Coptic Orthodox Bishop of Shubra al Khaymah, publicly thanked the imam for the promptness of his intervention, presented now by Egyptian media as a concrete example of the spontaneous attitude of the Egyptian people to build social relations of peaceful and supportive coexistence. (GV) (Agenzia Fides, 12/6/2018)


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