34 MIDDLE EAST REPORT 265 ■ WINTER 2012 Reconstituting the Coptic Community Amidst Revolution Paul Sedra E gypt’s Coptic community marked the passing in 2012 of two widely known and inluential public igures. he irst was the patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church, Pope Shenouda III, who died on March 17. Shenouda had celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of his enthronement as patriarch the previous November. he second was Milad Hanna, professor of civil engineering at ‘Ayn Shams University and veteran writer on public afairs in the state-owned al-Ahram newspaper, who passed away on November 27. While Shenouda was the leader of the Orthodox Church hierarchy and thus of the clerical establishment, Hanna was one of the most prominent and outspoken members of the Coptic laity. A century ago, the death of a member of the Coptic lay elite would have merited at least as much attention as the passing of the head of the Church. Yet while Pope Shenouda’s departure captured headlines and column-inches in every Egyptian newspaper, in stark contrast to the past the passing of Milad Hanna garnered only brief mention. And for observers of Egypt abroad, Shenouda was far and away the better-known igure; they may not have known of Hanna at all. he diference bespeaks a remarkable shift in the social and political dynamics of the Coptic community—a shift in inluence away from the laity and toward the clergy. he centrality given to Pope Shenouda as representative of the Coptic community, both in Egypt and abroad, tended to obscure the vitally important intra-communal dynamics of the Copts. Yet, without an understanding of those dynamics, it is impossible to grasp Egypt’s inter-communal relations, those between Christians and Muslims, as they have developed since the 2011 uprising that unseated Husni Mubarak. Indeed, the Signs of Maspero massacre victims above a remembrance march also protesting military rule, November 11, 2011. DAVID DEGNER/ZUMAPRESS.COM Paul Sedra is associate professor of history at Simon Fraser University and Middle East editor of History Compass.