In spring 2017, Martin Mosebach travelled to the Egyptian village of El-Or to visit the families of 21 Coptic men who had been murdered two years previously on a Libyan beach by ISIS terrorists. Sitting in reception rooms, watching the swallows swoop under the ceilings, he let his environment percolate into his thoughts. The icons of the Madonna and the portraits of Jesus on the walls, the crudely crafted reliquaries. In this world, everything earthly mirrors divine processes or fulfils biblical prophecy. Surrounded by children, goats and calves he was repeatedly shown the gruesome ISIS propaganda video made of the tragic event; he was amazed by the calmness of his hosts in dealing with this document of horror. Not once did they talk of revenge, instead telling him of their pride to have a martyr in the family, of the holy men now in heaven. The newest icons feature the 21 men crowned like kings.
Martin Mosebach has written a remarkable travel book recounting his experiences of a foreign culture and a church that has retained the liturgy and values of early Christendom. In this “Church of the Martyrs”, our physical world is divided from the heavenly spheres by the thinnest of membranes. He also visited churches and cloisters, and recounts his meeting with a bishop and the Coptic priests who tended to the flock to which the 21 men belonged. As a religious minority amongst the Muslim majority in Egypt, this age of cultural warfare has turned the Coptic community not only into a political issue but also a religious counterculture. Yet this work also offers insights into the soul of an Arabic country caught between its biblical past and the glitzy shopping malls of New Cairo.
