The 21 murdered Coptic men in Libya to be included in the Roman Martyrology

Great! The died because of their Christian faith even though Coptics have some subtle belief differences from Catholicism.

“These martyrs, Pope Francis assured the audience, “were baptized not only in water and in the Spirit, but also in blood, a blood that is the seed of unity for all followers of Christ.”

In John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical Ut Unum Sint (“That They may be One”) On Commitment to Ecumenism, one of this suggestions was to establish an Ecumenical Saint’s listing. Not hat they would be canonized by the Catholic Church but some sort of recognition.

Twenty-one Christian martyrs, including 20 Copts killed by Daech in 2015 in Libya, will be included in the Roman martyrology, Pope Francis announced on May 11, 2023, in front of Patriarch Tawadros II, Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church, who is present in Rome. This is historic: The Catholic Church and the Coptic Church have saints of the first centuries in common, but these will be the first saints recognized by both Churches since the split of the fifth century.

Pope Francis and Tawadros II are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the historic meeting between their predecessors, Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Shenouda III (1973-2023), the first meeting between a Bishop of Rome and a Patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church. In this context, the patriarch participated in the general audience of May 10 alongside the Argentine Pontiff in St. Peter’s Square.

Then this May 11, the two men met privately at the Vatican. Thanking the 70-year-old Egyptian patriarch for the “precious gift of a relic of the Coptic martyrs killed in Libya on February 15, 2015,” the Pope made this announcement: “With the agreement of Your Holiness,” he said, “these 21 martyrs will be inscribed in the Roman Martyrology as a sign of the spiritual communion that unites our two Churches.”

The Christian workers, 20 of whom were Coptic Orthodox and one of whom was Ghanaian, were murdered by the Islamic State organization on a beach in Libya on February 15, 2015. Six days later, Patriarch Tawadros II announced the insertion of their names in the “Synaxary” – the Eastern equivalent of the Roman martyrology – on February 15.

These martyrs, Pope Francis assured the audience, “were baptized not only in water and in the Spirit, but also in blood, a blood that is the seed of unity for all followers of Christ.”