Pope Francis has recognised as martyrs a group of 21 Coptic Orthodox Christians murdered by Islamic State terrorists eight years ago.
The Holy Father told Coptic Pope Tawadros II, the Patriarch of the See of St Mark, that the martyrs would be inserted into the Roman Martyrology “as a sign of the spiritual communion that unites our two Churches”.
The Coptic martyrs included 20 Egyptians and a man from Ghana who were beheaded by jihadis in Sirte, Libya, who filmed them in prayer as they died on February 15, 2015.
