Statement by Bishop Mouneer Anis of Egypt

RE: The First Islamist President of Egypt
June 24, 2012
By George Conger

Dear friends,

Greetings in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ! The majority of Egyptians have been holding their breath over the last few days. They were eagerly awaiting the announcement of the first president after the 25th of January Revolution. It was announced this afternoon, the 24th of June, that Mohammed Mursi won 51.7 percent of the votes, while his opponent Ahmed Shafiq won 48.3 percent.

By this close margin, Mursi became the first Islamist President in Egypt. Mursi, 60 years of age, was born in the Nile Delta. He is married and has five children and three grandchildren. He has a doctorate degree in space engineering from the University of Southern California. He has been an active member of the Muslim Brotherhood movement for many years. The Muslim Brotherhood is a political Islamic movement that started in Egypt in 1928, and is now an international network. Mursi became the President of the Muslim Brotherhood party, called the Freedom and Justice Party, which was established after the Revolution. He was arrested and imprisoned several times for short periods during Mubarak’s time. The last time was on the 28th of January 2011, and he was released by unknown people who opened the prison two days later.

Mursi promised to be a president for all Egyptians, to appoint a prime minister who is not from the Muslim Brotherhood, and moreover he promised to appoint a Christian vice-president. He made these promises to calm the widespread anxiety of the moderate Muslims and the Christians, who were hoping for a secular government. It is worth mentioning that over the last eight months, the Muslim Brotherhood has lost a lot of support because when they became the biggest party in the Egyptian parliament, they tried to dominate the committee which was responsible for writing the constitution. In addition, the Muslim Brotherhood promised that they would not nominate a presidential candidate; however they changed their mind and nominated Mursi. They also did not give any attention over the last year to the hardships of the Christians in Egypt. All of these reasons were behind the narrow margin in today’s election results.

The fear now is that Mursi will not fulfill his promises, and will try to control the government, the police and the upcoming parliamentary elections. If Egypt became an Islamic state, this will mean that Christians will be marginalized. It is true that today he withdrew from the Muslim Brotherhood Party; however he will continue to be influenced by their ideology. Some writers express their fears that if the Muslim Brotherhood gained control of Egypt, they will stay in power for more than 100 years. the rest