Tag Archives: Mariz Tadros

Domestic Violence and Accountable Actions in the Orthodox Church

by Mariz Tadros

My last essay spoke about breaking the silence around the invisible women in the Orthodox Church experiencing spousal violence and how we need accountable theology to stop the promotion of the notion that domestic violence is a cross to bear—but that both are essential but insufficient measures of redress. Here I probe further: How do we change the institutional norms that allow clergy to use their spiritual powers to propagate ideas condoning domestic violence? How do we make our churches accountable for upholding dignity and compassion for all? How do we create internal mechanisms with authoritative impact so that, with time, there is zero tolerance among believers for any justification of domestic violence? Continue reading →

Not a Cross to Bear
Domestic Violence, Coptic Christianity, and the Need for Accountable Theology

by Mariz Tadros

On the 18th of May, 2019 G., a Coptic female nurse living in Sydney, Australia was suffocated by a plastic bag and stabbed seven times as she was leaving the hospital after completing her night shift. The murderer was her husband. Insider information suggested that on the 16th of May, a high-ranking member of the Coptic Orthodox clergy pressed that she return to her husband despite being informed that her husband was allegedly a drug addict and was continuously beating her. It is alleged that G. did not want to return to her marital home, but she was told this is her cross and she must carry it. The case is the latest in a string of incidents that we have witnessed in Egypt and among the Coptic Diaspora of women sacrificing their lives as they succumb to the clergy’s pressures upon them to bear their cross. Another case in Brighton a few years ago involved a very similar scenario: a woman violently killed by her husband had been pressured into returning to her marital home. Sources who spoke on condition of anonymity shared that the local parish (Coptic) priests had pressed the victim to return to her marital home-against her expressed wishes not to return to him—and despite their awareness of his long history of wife-beating. While they did not physically force her, according to the sources, they certainly exerted a lot of pressure, urging her to bear her cross for the children’s sake. Continue reading →