A heroic priest in Egypt

In the midst of what has been dubbed the Maspero Massacre in Egypt when the military used great and excessive force against unarmed protesting Copts who simply demanded the right to practice their faith publicly, we learn of a heroic priest who saved one of the soldiers lives:

Early that evening of 9 October at 6:26pm, political activist Lobna Darwish wrote on Twitter (then Facebook), “Sons of dogs! Opening fire on a march full of children!”—as two armored vehicles moved insanely into the crowd, running over people to-and-fro. Darwish described the horrific scene further: “The vehicle would chase a group of people trying to run away, go over the street pavement, crush them, then see other people on the other side, so chase them until they too ran them down. It was moving in a zig-zag. Then, two armored vehicles were replaced by another two, each pair doing the same zig-zag chase. It was unbelievable. I was terrified. People were running everywhere... There were two young kids between fourteen and fifteen years of age hiding behind a car. The armored vehicle spotted them and ran over the car, destroying it and running over one of the kids.” 

Three armored vehicles disappeared into the night, whereas a fourth suddenly slowed down. People gathered around it, showering it with stones. They stopped it by throwing a broken traffic light that was on fire at that moment. The vehicle caught fire too, and a soldier inside tried to get out. Some people shouted, “Stop the stones! Let him out!” So, protestors stopped until the soldier made it out. Then, they viciously attacked him. “This soldier just killed our brothers, heartlessly running over them!” people cried. On a video circulated on YouTube, a Coptic priest was the one who intervened to protect the soldier, taking blows instead of him. Were it not for this priest, this soldier might have been killed.

The soldier whose life the priest saved seems to have run over at least 15 Copts just before his vehicle caught fire.

Please, stop right now and say a prayer for this priest, that the Lord will strengthen him for the struggles that remain ahead.