Three Egyptian monks from the Coptic Orthodox Church have been stabbed to death in a monastery in South Africa.
The suspect in the attack at the Saint Mark the Apostle and Saint Samuel the Confessor Monastery, located in Cullinan, east of Pretoria, has been detained but identified only as a man aged 35.
No motive for the attack has been disclosed, with the authorities saying only that they do not believe it was theft, as nothing was stolen.
The Coptic Orthodox Church has identified the monks as Takla el-Samuely, Yostos ava Markos, and Mina ava Markos and recognized them as “martyrs.”
Headquartered in Egypt, the Church mainly serves the Coptic people, who predate the Arab-Islamic conquest and colonization of the country and still comprise five-to-ten percent of the population.
The Copts have their own pontiff in Alexandria, Pope Tawadros II, who traces his seat to St. Mark in the same way the Roman Catholic pontiff traces his seat to St. Peter. They are frequently targeted by radical Islamic terrorists, with dozens being killed during twin suicide bombings at church services on Palm Sunday in 2017, for example.
The Church is part of the Oriental Orthodox Church, which also includes the likes of the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. It is separate from the Eastern Orthodox Church, which includes the likes of the Greek Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church.
