Coptic Pope Tawadros II met yesterday with family members of the 21 Coptic Christians who were murdered by terrorists of the so-called Islamic State in February.
According to Fides News Agency, the meeting was held in the village of Samalot, located in the province where most of the victims originated from. During the meeting, the Primate of the Coptic Church will give death certificates to the families of the victims, certifying their savage execution.
Militants loyal to IS released a message entitled «A Message Written in Blood to the Nation of the Cross», in which they behead the 21 men, many of whom could be seen invoking the name of Jesus before their death. The Coptic Church recognized their martyrdom and added their names to the Coptic Synaxarium, the Latin Church’s equivalent to the Roman martyrology.
On Monday, the Patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church said that the martyrs of Libya «have enriched the Church with their blood» and with their martyrdom have confessed and testified faith in Christ before the world.
Pope Tawadros’ visit to the family comes as news of the beheading of another Egyptian Copt in Libya. The headless corpse of Mansour Saad Awad, who worked as a poultry farmer in Cyrenaica, was found abandoned in the outskirts of town near the area where he lived.
