“Participation in the referendum is a must,” Pope Tawadros said during his weekly sermon at Cairo’s main Coptic Orthodox cathedral on Wednesday.
Egypt plans to hold a referendum – expected sometime in January – on an amended version of the 2012 constitution, which was suspended by the military this summer following the ouster of elected president Mohamed Morsi.
The referendum represents a central pillar of an army-imposed roadmap for political transition, unveiled by the military in the wake of Morsi’s July 3 ouster.
Pope Tawardros has described the amended charter as “balanced” and “an important step on the path to democracy.”
Church leaders, meanwhile, plan to urge members of Egypt’s sizable Coptic Christian community to vote “Yes” on the revised charter, a church source said.
Last year, Egyptian church representatives walked out of a Morsi-era constitutional committee tasked with drafting the 2012 charter to protest certain proposed articles, especially those related to Islamic Sharia.
There is no official data on the number of Christians in Egypt.
While independent sources put the number at between 5 and 10 percent of Egypt’s 90 million-strong population, Pope Tawadros II puts it at some 15 percent.
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World Bulletin News (via Copticworld)