Mennonite Central Committee

First Person: Father Youssef Andrawas

(as told to Keith Miller)
From the November–December 2008 issue of “A Common Place”

I was born in Maghagha, a town 180 kilometers south of Cairo, to a middle-class family. Like most Coptic Orthodox children, I went with my parents to the church once or twice a ­week.

I studied education and became a primary school teacher. But after I had taught for two years, a sermon by a priest in a Cairo church moved me deeply, and I felt something new in my heart. I was very happy, though I didn’t understand at the time what was stirring inside me.

I began to spend more time praying and reading the Bible more carefully. I became active as a volunteer in our church. Then one night I wrote a letter to my parents telling them I was going to dedicate my life to God and left without talking to anybody.

I went to Beni Suef, where I told the bishop of my new commitment, and he welcomed me. After spending two weeks of contemplation in a monastery, I returned to my home and talked to my family. They were supportive of my decision. In Beni Suef, I became a deacon, which in the Orthodox church means a full-time clergy worker, and began working with young people throughout the diocese. At this time I also began reading the writings of the desert fathers — early Christian monks who lived in secluded monasteries — and the Coptic Orthodox Pope Shenouda.

With the encouragement of Bishop Athanasius, the late Bishop of Beni Suef Diocese, I decided to learn English. An MCC worker was providing English lessons in Beni Suef at that time, and I took classes with him and with the two MCC English teachers who replaced him. Bishop Athanasius then encouraged me to go to England to study. At first I was reluctant to leave my work in Beni Suef, but I decided to go. I studied church education in Birmingham, and this experience gave me a new interest in education.

In 1993, I became director of Deir al-Bayyad, a retreat center across the Nile from Beni Suef. During this time I felt God was calling me to be a priest. In our tradition, priests must be married, so I prayed for God’s guidance in this matter. He led me to Enas, a volunteer at Deir al-Bayyad, who was committed to God’s purpose. In 1997, at age 37, I was made a priest, overseeing the newly created parish of al-Medina. I got married and the next day, as is our tradition, I was consecrated and left for 40 days of meditation and fasting in a desert monastery. My wife and I have one daughter, Verena, who is 10 years old.

In the early 1990s, following a number of incidents of political violence throughout the country, MCC decided to place workers only in Cairo. I was sad about this and wished the English classes in Beni Suef could start again. By God’s grace, while I was attending a conflict-mediation seminar in Cyprus in 2001, I met an MCC worker who was serving in South Africa. He put me in contact with the MCC administrators for the Middle East, and they agreed to send a family to Beni Suef to start the English courses again.

The courses have been going on for more than five years now. They provide the people of Beni Suef with the English skills they need to get high-level jobs, but, equally important, they allow Christians and Muslims to come together in a nonthreatening setting. I am always impressed by MCC workers because they offer their skills in the name of Jesus Christ as a service, and not as a job. This encourages our people.

In our city, there is a lot of distrust between Muslims and Christians. I felt God was calling me to make connections between the two groups, so I have started holding meetings to which both groups are invited. Usually a speaker from each religious community shares, and we have a time for discussion. Members of these interreligious meetings are also receiving training in trauma counseling and conflict mediation. In the future, we hope to do community service, such as planting trees or cleaning up a street, as a way of showing the people of Beni Suef our commitment to working together.

Father Youssef Andrawas, a Coptic Orthodox priest in Beni Suef, Egypt, oversees a program that offers evening English classes to adults. Keith Miller is an MCC worker teaching English in Beni Suef.