Rethinking the Coptic 1950s: Memorializing the Laity in the Early Nasser Era

Abstract

This article challenges predominant narratives of Coptic communal politics in the 1950s using press memorials written for recently deceased Copts in the early Nasser era. Predominant scholarly narratives argue that Egypt’s 1952 military coup marked a distinct rupture in the Coptic community, as the military regime replaced the competitive pluralism that defined communal politics during the previous decades by allying with the church leadership and sidelining the laity. Focusing on the memorial coverage of Coptic laymen who died amid Nasser’s consolidation of power, I argue that for the Coptic laity the 1950s did not constitute an experience of rupture and decline, but of continuity and optimism. Memorials celebrated the ties of deceased lay leaders with the new regime and commemorated the dead by focusing on their struggles in the name of reform, commitment to pluralism, and resistance against clerical corruption, the defining elements of pre-1952 Coptic communal politics.