I got this from one of the Cabinet:
I found out today that one of the martyrs was not a Copt, but rather Eastern Orthodox, perhaps from Kenya or Ghana, of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria.
That’s all that I have… I’ll get back to youse guys when I have more.
BMD
The Coptic Patriarchate of Alexandria and all Africa proclaimed the 21 Coptic men beheaded by terrorists martyrs. Their feastday is 15 February. However, do NOT jump into a Fox News-like hatred of all Muslims. Trust me, most are as aghast at this as we are. The Copts are part of the Orthosphere… blood of our blood, bone of our bone. Light a candle in their memory… we’re Christians, that’s what we do…
BMD
Many of you know my of my neologism, the “Orthosphere“… that is, the lands where Orthodoxy (both Eastern and Oriental) maintains either a majority or strong presence. The Orthosphere is a sociological/philosophical/intellectual/cultural construct… it’s NOT merely religious. Ergo, people not “in communion” in the religious sense ARE “in communion” in a cultural sense. Confused? Let’s make it murkier, kids… Uniates “look” Orthodox, but they’re NOT part of the Orthosphere. That’s because they’ve sold out completely to the papist mindset. Ergo, even though we’re not “in communion” with Copts, Armenians, and Ethiops, we ARE part of a unified Christian worldview with them, neither Papist nor Protestant. Even though the Uniates “look like us”, they’re NOT of us… they’ve sold out to the West and to its blandishments. Remember our history… how Russia aided the Assyrian Christians in World War I and how Russian officers served alongside Ras Makonnen in whipping the Italians (especially, Nikolai Leontiev of the Kuban Cossack Host).
Bob Marley joined the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Church before his death… that makes him “one of us”. Here are some images from his museum in Nine Mile (Saint Ann Parish), Jamaica, his hometown. The Orthosphere is our true “home”… and it’s all ours… or none of it’s ours. Keep it focused…
Voices from Russia 
A Growing Number of Muslims Accept Christianity in Egypt
Tags: Catholic Church, Christian, Christianity, Christianity in the Middle East, Christians in Egypt, Christians in Middle East, Copt, Coptic, Coptic Catholic Church, Coptic Christian, Coptic Church, coptic orthodox christians, coptic orthodox church, Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, Copts, Egypt, Islam, Islamism, Islamist, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Middle East, Middle Eastern, Mohamed Morsi, Mohamed Morsi Isa El-Ayyat, Muslim Brotherhood, Orthodox, Orthodoxy, political commentary, politics, Religion, Religion and Spirituality
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The website of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem posted that life for Christians in Egypt improved after the 2013 military coup against the régime of President Mursi and the Muslim Brotherhood. Moreover, the number of cases of conversion from Islam to Christianity has increased. The report noted that the exact number of cases of conversion to Christianity by Egyptian Muslims is difficult to determine, since those who accept baptism often don’t advertise their change of religion. In Egypt, Muslims who become Christians may still be victims of persecution or even killed if their former co-religionists learn of their baptism. Sedmitsa.ru posted that a recent convert to Christianity from Islam (who preferred to remain anonymous) told the Latin Patriarchate, “The government doesn’t oppress us, it comes from our families. If a Muslim accepts baptism, his family and neighbours can beat him or even kill him, as they perceive it as a betrayal of Islam”. In Egypt, the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria, which fell out of communion with the Eastern Orthodox Churches following the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in 451, currently numbers nine million believers. The Coptic Catholic Church in union with the Catholic Church of Rome has about 162,000 adherents.
8 August 2014
NEWSru
http://newsru.com/religy/08aug2014/egypt.html