U.S. Copts Association

By   Amr Bayoumi   

The Coptic Church has announced it has published a book to respond to the novel “Azazil” by Dr. Youssef Zaydan, director of the Center and Museum of Manuscripts at Alexandria University. 

Holy Synod Secretary and Damietta and Kafr Sheikh Archbishop Bishoy said the book [Response to Dr. Zaydan and his novel ‘Azazil’] would be on sale at the end of this month.

Bishoy stressed that this book has nothing to do with ‘Tis Azazil”, which has been posted on the Internet.

“The book is being prepared by a group of Coptic researchers under my supervision and has nothing to do with Islam and its prophet” he said.

“The book discusses the archaeological manuscripts on which Dr. Zaydan relied in his novel, which concerns the XXIV Coptic Pope Cyril” he added.

Bishoy added the Church knows nothing about so-called Father Yota. “We have already said at the conference on the Orthodox creed that we totally reject what he writes or calls for.”

Bishop Bishoy accused Dr. Zaydan of relying on Syriac manuscripts and mixing them with his fantasy as a novelist, in an attempt to do like Dan Brown in his “The Da Vinci Code”. Bishoy said Brown had taken Nestorians as his sources, adding that Nestorians were heretics and enemies of Pope Cyril.