During work to upgrade our database from Drupal 7 to Drupal 10, we found only the title of this article, the name of the Egyptian publication, Ṣawt al-Azhar, the name of the author, Muṣṭafā Thābit, the year, week and article number which indicates when it was published. Something must have gone wrong during the time of uploading which created a second entry for the same article for which we apologize. Since the author wrote a series of articles it was possible to identify https://www.dialogueacrossborders.com/en/year-2006/week-44/42-series-lie... where the text of this entry can be found.

Fr. Zakariya Butros (born 1934) is a highly controversial Coptic Orthodox priest who was not much appreciated by most clergy I met during my years in Egypt. I remember the public controversy started when he ran into trouble for falsifying the IDs of Muslims who had, at least in his understanding, converted to Christianity. The Egyptian ID lists the religious affiliation of the person carrying that ID, Muslim, Christian or Jewish. Changing the ID of a Christian or Jew to Islam is possible but the religious identity on the ID of a Muslim cannot be changed. In these years IDs were made of paper, not plastic which is practically impossible to falsify. The falsification practices of the priest were discovered and led to angry responses from conservative Muslims. Since neither the government nor the church wanted a continuation of this controversy, it was agreed with the priest and Australian immigration authorities that it would be best for him to emigrate to Australia. Here he further developed his thoughts about Islam, possibly influenced by contacts with Islamophobe Evangelical groups, and he turned into a fierce Christian preacher on Evangelical TV stations against Islam. This is where he became very notorious for his Islamophobe statements, which were frequently criticized in Egyptian media. Our database contains several such examples. Fr. Zakariya's polemics with Egyptian critique made the Coptic Orthodox Church defrock him which, however, did not deter him. Explanation added by Cornelis Hulsman, August 28, 2024.