* So, the first crushing stone was Islam. the Islamic invaders most of the time kept persecuting the copts:
- They forced them to pay additional taxes (El Gizia)
- They forced them to dress in a special way to be recognized from the muslims.
- They continued destroying their churches and preventing them from building other ones.
- From time to time, the Islamic population attacked the Copts, killed them, and there are many martyrs of the coptic church than you can ever imagine.
* All these events did not happen all the time but, most of the time. The persecution kept the Copts in the defense position, which turned them into fearful helpless and asking for mercy from God.
* These leaders gradually accepted the new politicla position given to them by the ruling Islamic governor. So they were and still the political representatives of the Copts, this beside their supposed spiritual role.
* That made them misuse and manipulate the Copts, keeping them away from the revolution against the Islamic invaders.
*These leaders misused the biblical words of love and peace and turned them to words of surrender and defeat.They turned the forgiveness into obedience and love into stupidity.
* They gradually gained the power to control both worlds of the Copts, the earthy world and the heavenly world.
They invented the system of confession that keeps them always on charge, which became a system of slavery that keeps the Copts in the obedience mode.
1) Intercession of Saints.
2) Intercession of priests.
* The Saints gradually became closer to the Copts than Jesus. An Jesus himself became a mighty God living in the 7th heaven (like the Islamic God : Allah). The saints became a corner stone in the Coptic church. Many Copts are , right now, believing in Saints, asking help from Saints, and even praying for Saints.
* The equal old relation between Copts and their Saints (Both pray for each other : as it is written in the Coptic Mass - dialogue) disappeared completely. A new relation came up : The weak miserable Copts always asking help and mercy from their mighty Saints(one-way realtion - monologue).
* You can feel in these days that the Copts are helpless, persecuted , and misrable people, and this is because of the effect of a long history of persecution (by the Islamic invaders) and the effect of the weak spirit the Coptic leaders had been cultivating for long centuries in the souls of the Copts.
* When the Copts kept asking before, "why that is happening to us?"
* The answer of the Coptic leaders was "Because you are sinners"
* "So, what sould we do?" the Copts kept asking.
* Again the answer was " You , sinners, keep confessing your sins to the priests, and God might look and help you"
* So, a new kind of intercession was added to the image , that was of the Coptic priests and leaders.
*Of course this senario is not a real one .. but somehow it happened along the centuries. And the result was terrible, the Copts , right now, are armless pathetic, and still asking for forgiveness for their sins as God might end their misery and the Islamic occupation.
* The Coptic mass still at this moment containing lots of "asking for mercy" prayers, and we think that they are newer ones after the Islamic invasion.
