On his first evening in Egypt Pope Francis prayed with Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II at the site where dozens of Coptic Orthodox Christians were killed last December.
The two leaders placed flowers and lit candles in homage to the 29 who were murdered for their faith at St Peter and St Paul’s Church. The faithful chanted a song of martyrs, and some clashed cymbals under the darkened evening sky.
Inside the small church in Cairo, the leaders of several other Christian communities in Egypt, as well as Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, sat before the congregation, which included family members of the victims.
