I received an email the other day from Jonathan Wright about myrecent comments on divorce and the Coptic church in Egypt. He writes:

I rather think you're missing the point in your comments on the Coptic Church and remarriage. You end by saying that "Meanwhile, the Coptic church continues to interfere in the personal affairs of ordinary Christians." Well of course it does, that's what religious institutions do everywhere in the world. They tell people what they can eat, when they should pray, how they should treat their friends and relatives and so on, sometimes in great detail. 

It's absurd to imagine that the Coptic Church, which has survived some 1,800 years and which claims to speak with divine authority, would agree to take orders from an Egyptian state which has existed in its present form for less than 60 years and has a rather tenuous claim to legitimacy. 

The failure here is on the part of the Egyptian state, which insists that all Egyptians accept classification into one of three religions (or four if we now add Baha'ism) and that they follow the rulings of the relevant religious establishment on personal status questions. It refuses to make allowances for people who turn to atheism, agnosticism, Buddhism or anything else, or who simply disagree with the church, the Azhar or whatever. 

The solution is glaringly obvious – an alternative personal status law for ALL Egyptians who reject clerical interference in such matters. It will probably come about, but given that only a tiny fraction of Egyptians favour such a law it's going to take many years. It will also take bold leadership and Egypt doesn't have that. I'd be interested to hear what alternative scenarios you have in mind. Don't forget that divorce and remarriage were close to impossible in places like Italy and Ireland only a few decades ago.

I agree with most of what he says but perhaps I should explain the bit about the church interfering "in the personal affairs of ordinary Christians". Of course it's a church's business to give moral guidance to its members, but the situation in Egypt is that the Coptic church can prevent its members from re-marrying if it doesn't like the reasons why they got divorced.

Clearly, the church should not be forced to marry people in contravention of its own principles, but at the same time it should not be in a position to stop them being married by another route. That, in effect, is what happens. Egypt doesn't really offer civil marriage as an alternative, and changing to another church in order to re-marry is often not a practical option either. As Amira Gamal, a Coptic lawyer, has pointed out, "Changing denominations has become a big business [in Egypt]. It could cost as much as US$10,000, paid to the church."

Personal status laws – covering marriage, divorce, adoption, inheritance, etc – are a major issue in terms of the relationship between religion and states. They are especially problematic in countries like Egypt where one faith is dominant but there is also a large minority from another faith.

I hope to look at this in more detail shortly. Doing some preliminary research on Google, I found quite a lot of articles discussing personal status laws in terms of their impact on women's rights. However, I found very little about their impact on religious freedom – which is surprising, considering its importance. I'd be pleased to hear from any readers who have thoughts about that aspect, or who can point to any relevant research.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 18 July 2010.