Subtitles to this article:
- Shubra only has 15 groups.
- They consider music and statues a sin and writers and thinkers the soldiers of the devil.
- Members are young people, primarily from the poor classes.
- Secret meetings for the members and strange rituals for new members
- They say that the men of the church are not true believers and their first rule is the complete and unquestionable obedience to the leader of the group.
The article presents discussions on supposedly Christian extremist groups which have large sums of money and whose teachings deviate from the standard beliefs of the church in Egypt.
Editor Cornelis Hulsman added on 24.6.2024: I have met with Fr. Daniel el-Baramousi a couple of times, each time I was in the company of one of his followers I knew. Fr. Daniel was a Coptic Orthodox monk working in the diocese of Minia with Bishop Arsanius. His messages became more and more Evangelical/Charismatic with which he attracked large crowds and also gained the attention of Pope Shenouda. The Pope called for a church council in which he was defrocked. This council was video recorded and spread at the time. After Fr. Daniel was defrocked, he started his own church and took many of his Orthodox followers with him. In February 2013 I saw him again in a very large conference in Itsa, Upper Egypt. I was staying with a small Dutch group at the Coptic Evangelical conference Centre at t he time but the space he had rented did not belong to the conference centre. Fr. Daniel as he was still called, although no monk anymore, would look someone sternly in the eyes, clearly indicated God had revealed to him the true understanding of the Bible. I have heard people trying to convert Muslims by telling them not to fast and break other Muslim customs and use the phrase "In the name of Jesus we defeat the powers of magic, evil, poverty, marital discordance and addiction.” I also knew Coptic researcher Marilène Tadrous and her comments are definiteky to the point and so are other comments made in the text. I am only not certain if there was a connection between Fr. Daniel and Max Michel.
