By David Salter
As we pass the first-year anniversary of the coronation of King Charles III, we present this piece from Happy & Glorious: A Royal Celebration reflecting on the King, and some surprising adventures in Egypt. Click here for Part 2.
In the following 10 years since I arrived in Egypt, a unique adventure has developed to personally involve, and be commended by, the Primates of two worldwide churches—the Most Reverend Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, and His Holiness Pope Tawadros II, 118th Patriarch of Alexandria—as well as HRH Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, now of course His Majesty King Charles III, plus UK Parliamentarians of both Houses at Westminster, civil servants at Whitehall, Universities, schools, church congregations and others. The ripples are still spreading outwards both in England and in Egypt, a significant sign of hope for the future in these very difficult times of pandemic, war crimes, climate change, population pressure and economic uncertainty.
Everything began in 2013 with that persistent idea about two-way partnerships. As I wondered exactly what to do, a Church of England curate and a Coptic Orthodox priest independently advised that I should, if at all possible, go to Egypt myself, to avoid unknown intermediaries and wasteful overheads here and abroad. They said I should find out directly where the need was greatest, and report back having gained authority for what I could report by being an eye-witness myself. So I spoke at St. Andrew’s, we raised some donations for me to take, I took time off from my family and my day job, bought myself a ticket, and flew to Cairo.
After finding a taxi and battling the famously hectic local traffic, I negotiated my way past two tanks and many soldiers at the steel-gated entrance to the walled compound of the worldwide head of millions in the Coptic Orthodox Church, His Holiness Pope Tawadros II. This compound was the Coptic equivalent of the Vatican. The Papal Residence in Cairo was inside this area, together with the great Cathedral of St. Mark and several smaller church buildings, although, sadly, all this impressive security did not stop the later suicide bomb attack and dozens of deaths in Boutrosiya church beside the Cathedral on Sunday, December 11, 2016. That attack of course was still in the future, as were many more besides.
Finding the Residence, I was allowed in to take a seat. After some six hours of waiting, Papal staff took pity on this entirely unexpected (and let’s admit it, fairly clueless) foreigner hopefully holding a letter of introduction. They asked me who I was and why I was there. Then, unknown to me, they reported my presence directly to His Holiness himself, and he, most unusually and kindly, invited me to a lengthy private audience that very evening. The whole story merits fuller telling, and His Holiness surprised me by saying that we in Plymouth, in distant England, were the first to propose this idea of two-way partnerships, which he said showed “great love for the people of Egypt.” This was very moving indeed in the circumstances, and I had to stiffen the sinews somewhat, despite being a buttoned-up Brit!
His Holiness heartily commended this proposal and said that he would ask his Bishops to arrange for me to travel all over Egypt, even though diplomats and media folk were highly restricted, and all rail travel was stopped because of the significant risk of ambush and attack. In the most dangerous areas, banned even to the BBC, I was therefore provided with a personal escort convoy of seven police vehicles and 30 men with submachine guns, led by a Police General in person. Later, when I was back again in England, the BBC phoned me to ask whether I could ask the Pope for similar access for their media professionals—and I had to say that foreign laymen cannot just “phone the Pope”! But everywhere, whether guarded or not, I was able to talk and record interviews with the highest and the lowest, in major cities such as Cairo, Alexandria, El Minya, and Sohag, and in smaller places too. Many of these locations are generally unknown to foreign tourists and are not visited by the media either. They are simply too dangerous.
In following months, I edited down the 60 GB of video and stills I had taken with my little HD camera, despite lacking assistance with sound or lighting. I organized the material, wrote and recorded a script, and got native-speaker help with properly translating my Arabic interviews with people into English subtitles. Interviewees included His Grace Bishop Bakhom of the Middle Egyptian city of Sohag, who gave a calm but hair-raising account of being attacked in his own Cathedral by terrorists using massive butane gas canisters as rams to break down the doors. They then set fire to the building, leaving the gas canisters to explode like steel-clad grenade.
In due course I made a one-hour film of my tour of Egypt and gave away over 70 DVD copies of it, which I made at home. Because of its unique material, I was asked to show this at Westminster to UK Parliamentarians from both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, and was relieved when some Egyptian guests said they thought it was indeed an accurate portrayal, which they could not have outlined any better themselves. I also advised Prime Ministerial staff at 10 Downing Street and the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (later FCDO) as to what I had seen. Baroness Caroline Cox, the former nurse and now cross-bench Peer and Devon-raised intrepid pioneer of international partnerships, memorably invited me to a Devonshire cream tea at the House of Lords, and said she would “spread the word.”
The next year, I returned to Egypt and was again welcomed by His Holiness in private audience. I gave him multiple copies of my unique film on DVDs and USB memory sticks, and he gave me gifts in return, including a Papal medal of St. Mark. To my even greater surprise, he gave me a marzipan statue of Jesus, which he pulled from the top of an Easter cake he had been given earlier that day. (“Ah! Dr. David! Take this for your children!” he kindly said when he first saw me again). I protected this statue inside two cut-down water bottles as I carried it around in the relentless heat of the Western Desert throughout the following week.
In future years, I would meet this most kind Primate again on his first Papal visits to Luxor and to England. Meeting him has always been more than just theoretically a privilege. As a member of a Protestant church, I am not used to calling anyone “Your Holiness,” but with Pope Tawadros it feels—and I mean feels—entirely appropriate. Initially trained as a pharmacist and a factory manager, it seems to me that His Holiness is a most wise, learned, practical and humble man with a good sense of humour. All these gifts, and more, now benefit the Coptic Orthodox Church worldwide.
Later there would be extraordinary visits to various monasteries, including visits to an especially isolated and vulnerable one in the Western Desert south of the Fayoum. The route was across a 20-kilometer dusty, unpaved desert track along which on more than one occasion other pilgrims—men, women and children—would be literally martyred in cold blood because, when challenged by Islamist bandits, they refused to renounce their faith in Christ. I have travelled this same dusty and unlit track, weaving between boulders, by night as well as by day, and can now recall it unsettlingly well.
More than once I have been warmly welcomed to the monastery by the Abbot, His Grace Bishop Basilios. On my very first visit, conducted there by my Muslim driver Mohammed, Abbot Basilios followed the example of Jesus serving his disciples, and to my initial considerable embarrassment served me himself with some very tasty lentil soup and fresh, monastery-made, flattened aesh masri bread. Later, I raised with him the delicate question of what, if anything, contemplative monks can do to combat hateful violence—something which seemed initially to be an unlikely prospect. His very moving—and personally lived—answer became crystallized in the title of the film I later made and showed to Parliamentarians: “No Need to Hate.”
To visit this dangerously isolated monastery, and even to stay there, was memorable. On one such visit, I was invited to join in worship with the monks right through the night. All through the long hours the service went on and on, in Coptic of course, a mixture of koine ancient Greek and the last stages of Pharaonic ancient Egyptian. Well after dawn broke again everything drew to a close, and we could go to a simple breakfast. Later I was told that the service had in fact been shortened (to only about six hours) because “we are in the period of rejoicing after Easter.” Very different. Immersive. Not the quick few songs and sermon we usually settle for in the Church of England! But it was such dedication to holy lives that produced the Desert Fathers of old, and the beginnings of Christian monasticism within these lonely open spaces of the desert.
Come back next Thursday to read the final installment.