The pope’s body was carried by a military aircraft to Wādī al-Natrūn to be buried at the Bishop Bīshūy Monastery, where he used to seek reclusion.

Clad in their bulbous black miters, more than 110 bishops members of the Holy Synod in and outside Egypt as well as 500 priests, foreign delegations from the churches of Ethiopia, Syria, Lebanon, the Vatican and Greece and 1,000 liturgy and hymn reciters and vicars were at hand to perform prayers over the pope.

Ramsīs street in ‘Abbāssīyah has been a chaotic scene just as the pope’s body was being carried out of the cathedral as grieving screams and phrases of farewell reached deafening limits while thousands crossed the iron barricades to catch up with the vehicle that was boarding the body.

Bishop Bākhūmius, who is running the church affairs pending the election of a pope, said the Holy Synod is meeting on Thursday (March 22) for deliberations over the 1957 statute and officially name a caretaker patriarch and notify the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) to have it issue an official decree on the grounds that it is invested with the president of the republic’s powers. [‘Imād Khalīl and Dālyā ‘Uthmān, al-Misrī al-Yawm, March 21, p. 1] Read original text in Arabic