Pope Tawadros II calls Pope Leo XIV
Pope Tawadros II, Patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church, made a phone call on the evening of 6 June 2025 to Pope Leo XIV to congratulate him on being elected as Pope, to shoulder the responsibility of leading the Roman Catholic Church.
During the call, the two Popes affirmed the continued warm relationship of love between the two Churches of Rome and Alexandria, and the annual celebration of the Day of Brotherly Love between the two Churches on 10 May.
Their conversation dealt with the suffering of the people of Gaza owing to war and famine, stressing the urgent need for an immediate end to assaults.
They also talked about the issue of Saint Catherine's Monastery in Sinai and the current land dispute with the Egyptian government, expressing appreciation for Egypt's political leadership and the government's affirmation that the 6th-century Orthodox monastery and its monks will always remain protected and unharmed.
The call concluded with Pope Tawadros extending an invitation to Pope Leo XIV to visit Egypt and the Church of Egypt. Comments
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Having had a late 1970s early 1980s childhood, Victory Day—6 October 1973—has never held for me any personal feeling of victory and delight, however it has been this and more for my parents and their friends who have lived the 1967 Six Day War and subsequent defeat, then the pride of Victory Day. On 6 October 1973 the Egyptian air force and army freed Egypt from the bitterness of its humiliating defeat at the hands of Israel in the 1967 Six Day War, bringing about a stunning military victory for Egypt. Despite my appreciation of the momentous historic value of that day, and despite its impact on my parent's generation, it never personally resonated with me. I had to wait till June 2013 to live my own cherished Victory Day. On 30 June 2013, Egyptians in their millions, my family and myself included, took to the streets to demonstrate against the Muslim Brotherhood's (MB) two-year authority over Egypt, including one year of ruling the country. Someone who did not live in Egypt through that period might wonder what was it that was so unsettling about the MB rule? What drove millions of Egyptians to the streets to adamantly demand an end to their religious-based rule? After all, hadn't the MB Muhammad Mursi been democratically elected President in 2012? Wasn't this a healthy politically-needed democratic turn of events? Wasn't this the democracy Egyptians called for during the 2011 Arab Spring uprising? In reply to such questions and many more, I will tell you why I jolted myself up from my 'couch', relinquished my passive political silence, and took the, for me, drastic step of taking to the street to protest against MB rule. My use of the term 'couch' references the expression en vogue in Egypt in 2011 – 2013: 'the couch [political] party'; it was used critically to imply the laziness and apathy of the silent majority, the large segment of Egyptians who, through passivity and political disengagement, abandoned the political arena to activists or people who pushed their own agendas. The first time for me to leave the comfort passivity of my 'couch' was in November 2012—five months into President Mursi's rule—when he issued his notorious constitutional declaration granting himself sweeping powers, and placing his decisions above judicial review. One month later, he and his MB allies pushed in a new constitution for Egypt, one which gave provisions for religious interpretations of laws, and failed to protect minorities especially Christians and women. 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