Rome: The Pope Celebrates Oriental Orthodox Martyrs

The Coptic Church, which is mainly present in Egypt, is separated from Rome. The Copts refused the fourth ecumenical Council of Chalcedon held in 451. There is a small Coptic Catholic minority which re-entered communion with Rome in 1824.

In the wake of Vatican II and a wave of ecumenism, Pope Paul VI met with Coptic Orthodox Patriarch Shenouda III in 1973, and Francis himself met with Patriarch Tawadros II, successor of Shenouda III, in 2013.

John Paul II introduced the idea of “the ecumenism of the saints and of the martyrs,” in his apostolic letter Tertio Millenio adveniente of November 10, 1994. In the wake of this, an ecumencial or universal martyrology was proposed, then realized, but without the official support of the Catholic hierarchy.

The “Coptic Martyrs” of Libya

On February 15, 2015, a group of 21 Christians, including 20 Egyptians belonging to the Coptic Orthodox community and a Ghanian Catholic, were executed on a beach of Sirte (Libya), by militiamen of the Islamic State in Libya. The video of the massacre was broadcasted through the terrorist group’s propaganda channels.

The 20 Copts have been inscribed, since February 21, 2015, in the catalogue of Coptic saints, with the rank of martyrs, by the Primate of the Coptic Orthodox Church, Tawadros II. And on May 11, 2023, Pope Francis announced that the 21 martyrs--Egyptian and Ghanian--would be inscribed in the Roman Martyrology, the Martyrology of the Catholic Church. 

On February 15, the relics of these martyrs, given to the Pope by the Coptic Orthodox Patriarch, were exposed in the choir chapel of St. Peter’s Basilica, and an ecumenical prayer was pronounced. A documentary produced in the native village of the martyrs under the patronage of the Patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church was shown at the Vatican Film Library.

This inscription and this veneration pose a serious problem: whatever the state of the salvation or even the “martyrdom” of a member of a non-Catholic Church, the Pope does not have the power to include him in the Martyrology, nor to suggest veneration, nor to declare him a saint before the Church.

The question is treated in a masterly way by Prospero Lambertini, the future Benedict XIV, Pope from 1740 to 1758, in his monumental work De servorum Dei beatificatione et de beatorum canonizatione, (On the Beatification of the Servants of God and the Canonization of the Blessed).

The famous author specifically asks himself if it is possible to have martyrs outside the Catholic Church, considering the non-Catholics who suffered death for their faith. His response is simple and enlightening: yes, there can be martyrs outside of the Church, as long as they died confessing Catholic doctrine. But it is not possible to know if these people died confessing Catholic truth or a heretical belief. Only God knows it.

This is why, they can be martyrs before God, who reads their consciences--and they will receive in Heaven the reward of martyrdom--but they cannot be martyrs before the Church. In other words, they cannot be venerated as martyrs, nor celebrated as such in the Church. It seems that Benedict XIV has been forgotten today at the Vatican.