The tiny papyrus, no bigger than a business card, has sparked controversy among scholars since it was unveiled by Harvard historian Dr Karen King in 2012.

Dr King then called it a valuable clue that some early Christians believed Jesus was married.

"The Gospel of Jesus' wife" consists of just eight lines and they show an interrupted conversation.

Among its phrases were "Jesus said to them, ‘My wife. . .' " and "she will be able to be my disciple".

But articles in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times detail findings by a Coptic expert at Indiana Wesleyan University that cast doubts on the papyrus.

Dr Christian Askeland posits that it matches another document, the "Gospel of John" fragment, which is clearly a forgery.

The two documents have many similarities—including the handwriting, ink and writing instrument used.

The "John" piece was written in a dialect of Coptic known to have died out before the papyrus it was written on could have been made, tests show.

It also appears to have been copied from another Coptic document discovered in 1923, even repeating its line breaks.

Dr Askeland concluded that both the "John" and the "wife" papyri were written by the same hand.

Many scholars now consider the debate over, declaring the "Gospel of Jesus' Wife" is a clever fake.

Dr King, who unveiled the wife papyrus in 2012, admitted these latest criticisms should be taken seriously.

"This is one option that should receive serious consideration, but I don't think it's a done deal," she told the New York Times.

Last month, the Harvard Theological Review published the results of scientific tests on the wife papyrus.

These revealed that radiocarbon tests produced a date of 659 to 859 CE.

The ink used was also consistent with other ancient documents, tests showed.

The Review published experts who wrote that they could find no apparent evidence of forgery.

Sources

• The New York Times
• The Wall Street Journal
• Image: MNN

"Most of the Christians do not want the president," said Father Rafic Greiche, the spokesman for the Greek Melkite Catholic Church in Egypt. "We have to be clear about this."

"Most of the Christians have felt during this year that nothing of his promises toward the Christians has been implemented," Father Greiche told Vatican Radio.

"And it is very important to know that this year nearly every day we have a sectarian problem: Burning churches, deporting people, and this big attack on the Copt Orthodox cathedral that happened two months ago."

The Christians who joined the protests said discrimination and violence against minority faiths had increased since Morsi took office at the head of a political party was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Coptic Pope Tawadros II gave his view in a tweet: "It's wonderful to see the Egyptian people — through the idea of Tamarod and its youth — taking back their stolen revolution in a peaceful way."

Tamarod is the protest group that led the campaign against Morsi.

Coptic Catholic Patriarch Ibrahim Isaac Sidrak said "a year from the election of President Mohammed Morsi, we see the country going backwards, instead of forwards".

Last year, representatives of all the Christian churches resigned at the same time from the Constituent Assembly as a gesture of protest against attempts by Islamist forces to impose a Muslim identity on the country.

During the latest demonstrations, President Morsi tried to persuade Pope Tawadros to tell Coptics not to protest. So did the American ambassador, Anne Patterson. Pope Tawadros told them his spiritual authority over the Copts did not extend to political matters.

According to the Middle East News Agency, leaders from Egypt's Muslim and Christian communities will now meet with military leaders and opposition figures to discuss an end to the current political crisis and pave the way forward for Egypt.

Sources:

Vatican Radio

Catholic Online

Vatican Insider

Image: Hindustan Times

The club, who currently needs to access to its neighbour's land to turn its park lights on and off say the private land is part of the club's history and it will cost the club $30,000 to redirect the powers supply to the club's park.

The land, now owned by the Coptic Orthodox Church was purchased last year after its Edgeware church was destroyed in the September 2010 earthquake.

The Church intends to build a church, complete with a 12 metre tower and gold domes.

Christchurch Rugby Club Deputy club captain, Nigel McAlister said the club has been locked out of the facility which is part of the Christchurch rugby club's history.

He says there was a lack of community consultation over the church's purchase of the land and the entrance to the park "feels like a fenced off prison".

McAlister accused the council of not considering the loss of services to park users and Club president Matt Hinman said the proposed church "just felt wrong".

Father Sourial Sourial, of the Coptic Church, said the rugby club had been welcomed with "respect and love" but said it needed to realise the site was privately owned.

"It's a change for them and we understand that . . . but it's not a public space any more."

Church representative Mofreh Saleh said the club had been leaving the power on when it was not required and were not paying electricity costs.

He said the council had taken the "legal and correct steps" to grant resource consent.

Saleh said the church would conduct "quiet community activity" and wanted to build "something beautiful for the city of Christchurch", he said.

Dr Nagi Bishay, an engineer for Christchurch Rugby Club sponsor, Kirk Roberts, has helped design the church and said it would be a "wonderful building" built to the highest of standards.

It was hoped construction would begin late this year and the project relied entirely on community and church donations.

Deb Jackson, from the Airport Guesthouse opposite the clubrooms, said she had "no problem whatsoever" with the proposed church.

"When that was a rugby club, we had issues with drinking and people throwing bottles . . . and peeing in letterboxes," she said.

The Christchurch Rugby club was founded in 1863 and is the oldest rugby-playing club in the world.

Sources:

• Stuff
• Image: Stuff

The meeting came one day after he met the interim leader of Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Church, which makes up the vast majority of the roughly 8 million Christians in the country.

The new president of Egypt gained 51.7% of the votes against Ahmed Shafiq, the last prime minister under ousted President Hosni Mubarak, in the country's freest elections since 1952.

Morsi's election had fed fears among Christians and more liberal Muslims that the Islamists will use their political mandate to impose conservative restrictions on dress and behaviour, Catholic News Service reported.

Seeking to fulfil a promise of inclusive government, Morsi has resigned as head of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party and said he would name a woman and a Christian among his six vice-presidents.

Father Rafic Grieche, spokesman for the Egyptian Catholic Bishops' Conference, noted that Egypt's Christians had lived under Islamic regimes for 1400 years.

"We hope Morsi will be a just ruler," he said. "Mubarak's time was not fair, and I do not think Morsi could be worse.

"At the same time, the people of Islamic tendencies will be working to Islamicise the society. You don't need laws to do this. It can happen in day-to-day life," he said, explaining, for example, that an employer might opt to hire a woman wearing a veil rather than one who did not.

Sources:

Vatican Radio

AsiaNews

News.va

Vatican Insider

Image: Worldcrunch

Coptic Orthodox catholics began a three-day fast last Tuesday. A priest said the fast was a way for the Copts to show their mistrust of Egypt's authorities and was a move unparalleled since the 1970s, when Copts protested against President Anwar Sadat's introduction of Islamic-inspired laws.

Pope Benedict has underlined the importance of preserving the co-existence, especially at this time of transition and he urged the faithful to pray, so that Egypt can enjoy a true peace based on justice, respect for freedom and the dignity of every citizen.

The Pope made the appeal on last Wednesday during his General Audience.

The Pope also expressed his support for the efforts of the Egyptian authorities, both civil and religious, to bring about a society which respects the human rights of all its citizens and, in particular, minorities.

Last week John Allen interviewed Scott Appleby of Notre Dame, an American Catholic historian and scholar of religion who heads the university's "Contending Modernities" project, designed to foster dialogue among Catholics, Muslims, and secularists. He says two points stand out from his interview:

• If Catholics want to support Christians of the Middle East, the best long-term strategy is to boost our "Islamic literacy," learning to make careful distinctions among various actors in the Islamic world - and the best way to do that is by engaging the Muslims in our own backyard.
• Christians in the West must acknowledge, and help revitalise, the traditional authority structures and leaders in the Islamic world because relying solely on moderates and Westernized Muslims will not reach the "street" in Egypt or anywhere else.

Islam Awareness Week (IAW) in New Zealand is taking place 31 October to 5 November this year. The theme is "Islam and the Environment: Our Rights and Responsibilities."

Christianity in Egypt

Epypt has been a predominantly Moslem country since the Islamic conquest of Egypt in 640AD. Reliable estimates of the size of Egypt's Christian population are hard to obtain. They range from 10% to 30%.

• About seven million are members of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, although some say it is closer to 9 million. The leader of the Coptic Christian Church is Pope Shenouda III.
• About 24,000 are Coptic Catholics; they are in full communion with Rome.
• About 40,000 are Greek Orthodox Christians.
• About 27,000 are Protestant Christians.

Source

• The London Tablet - Editorial
• The London Tablet -Article
• Vatican Radio
• The National Catholic Reporter
• Wikipedia
• Image: Monthly Review

The Church claimed that the army and police "used" a mob of street fighters armed with rifles, sticks, stones and swords who it says carried out an unprovoked attack on thousands of demonstrators in Cairo late Sunday, October 9th.

The protesters, made up of Muslims as well as Christians, marched to Egypt's state television headquarters, calling for greater action to protect Christians in Egypt after a spate of attacks against them.

On Sunday in central Cairo, 25 people were killed, 17 of them Coptic Christians, and more than 200 others were injured.

Fr. Greiche official spokesman for the Catholic Church in Egypt, described the "anger and hurt" after the deaths of the 25, most of them in their 20s and 30s.

"Today, people are very angry about what happened last night. The army and the police are confronting the Copts. This is the problem. It is not a Christian/Muslim problem anymore."

Fr. Greiche went on to accuse the government of being complicit in arson attacks on churches, giving tacit approval to Islamists to carry out the attacks.

Sparking yesterday's violence was alleged government inaction following last month's arson attack on a re-built church in Marinab, a village in southern Egypt's Aswan province.

Demonstrators called for the removal of the governor of Aswan who they claim gave permission for the construction work before siding with extremists against the church.

Fr. Greiche said, "The governor gave the green light for the fundamentalists to burn the church near Aswan. It's the fourth time in recent months that a church has been burnt in this way by Islamists."

He said that since the fall of Mubarak in February, Islamists across Egypt formerly repressed by the president, were now very active, causing great anxiety to many Muslims as well as Christians.

Fr. Greiche said, "Since the fall of Mubarak, the fundamentalists have developed a very loud voice. The government leaves them to do whatever they want."

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Image: Urban Christian News