Unlike the heads of Egypt’s official Islamic institutions, Coptic Pope Shenouda stood up against Egypt’s former President Anwar Sadat for his normalization with Israel and flirting with Islamist forces. But the late pontiff had little qualms pandering to Mubarak’s rule and his plan for succession.

The percentage of Copts in the total Egyptian population is left for speculation, as all the agencies of the state, whether the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics or the church itself, refuse to disclose such information. Public estimates of Copts range between 10 and 20 percent.

The Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt is in many ways are not much different from official Muslim religious institutions like al-Azhar and Dar al-Ifta in terms of its relation with the ruling authority.

The head of the church, the late Pope Shenouda, had his run-ins with the state under former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, when the pope was exiled to a monastery in the western desert toward the end of the assassinated president’s term.

His relationship with Sadat’s successor, Hosni Mubarak, turned out to be warm and cordial despite all the bloody and violent sectarian incidents against Copts during Mubarak’s reign.