Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria - Pope and Patriarch

Pope and Patriarch

He was enthroned as Pope Shenouda III, the 117th Pope of Alexandria and patriarch of the See of St. Mark on 14 November 1971, nearly nine months after the death of Pope Cyril VI of Alexandria. The ceremony was the first and, as yet, the only enthroning of a Coptic Pope to take place in the new Saint Mark's Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Cairo. He was the third Alexandrian Partriarch to take the name Shenouda; his namesakes were Shenouda I (859–880) and Shenouda II (1047–1077).

Some Copts argue that the choice of Pope Shenouda III as Pope (and Bishop) of Alexandria was not canonical, as Shenouda was already a bishop (although without a diocese), arguably violating Canon 15 of the Council of Nicea against the translation of bishops from one See to another. This issue caused an ongoing dispute in the Coptic Orthodox Church since 1928, and although the Holy Synod of the Coptic Orthodox Church considered in the 1960s the General Bishops to be secretaries to the Pope in the degree of a Bishop, Pope Shenouda III was sometimes considered to be the fourth Bishop to become a Pope after Popes John XIX (1928–1942), Macarius III (1942–1944) and Joseph II (1946–1956).

Less than one year after becoming Pope of the Church of Alexandria, in October 1972, Pope Shenouda visited the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople and the Pope of Rome, becoming the first Alexandrian Pope to do so since the Christological schism of the Council of Chalcedon in 451 CE. In May 1973, he penned a Christological statement that was agreed upon with the Roman Catholic Church and the Oriental and Eastern Orthodox Churches on the Nature of Christ, in a step towards settling the 15-century-old dispute of 451 and moving towards Christian unity. On 10 May 1973, he celebrated the return by the Roman Catholic Church of part of the relics of St Athanasius of Alexandria. From 25 to 30 September 1974 he went on a pastoral trip to visit the Ethiopian Church during the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia.

Between 14 April and 23 May 1974, he became the first Archbishop of Alexandria to visit North America when he visited the USA and Canada. It was to become the first of many visits to that part of the world during his long Episcopate. He also visited Australia six times. The first visit was in 1989 (18 November – 10 December), the second was in 1991 (5–26 February), the third in 1993, the fourth in 1995 (August–September), and the fifth in 1996. His sixth and final trip took place in November 2002. He conducted an extended Silver Jubilee tour from 18 May to 20 December 1996, which took him to Europe, Canada, USA and Australia. From 11 to 13 April 2008, he made a second historical trip to Ethiopia following the resolution of the strain in the relationship between the two Churches caused by the communist coup in Ethiopia decades earlier.