Special Day for Local Copts : Visit by Pope Shenouda III to Consecrate Church Is Reward for 11 Years of Planning

Pope Shenouda III, religious leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church, will turn the 11-year dream of local faithful into reality Sunday when he consecrates the first Orange County church of one of Christianity’s oldest sects.

“We’re happy, of course, and very eager. All the people are anxious to see him,” Father Felimon M. Mikhail said Friday as he prepared for the papal visit. “We’ve waited (a long time) for this blessing from him.”

For years, local Copts, as followers are called, held Masses and ceremonies at a school, and before that in a house. Mikhail, 53, who came from Cairo in 1986 to serve the local community, said that now, however, the congregation will have its own two-story church, meeting place, and Sunday school on one site.

On Sunday morning, the 69-year-old Pope will consecrate the Archangel Michael Church, at 4405 W. Edinger Ave., as part of his tour of U.S. Coptic churches.

An audience of about 1,500 followers from as far as Los Angeles and Riverside counties is expected. Although the church capacity is 300, the overflow crowd will watch the three-hour Mass on closed-circuit television in a downstairs meeting room and a tent outside. The Coptic Orthodox Church, an apostolic church, was founded in Alexandria, Egypt, in AD 56 by St. Mark. Shenouda is his 117th successor.

Like other Christian sects, the Coptic Church’s main tenets include a belief in Jesus Christ as the son of God. But many of its rituals, such as which days adherents fast, differ from those of other sects.

The Coptic Church counts about 15 million followers worldwide, Mikhail said. There are now 55 Coptic churches in the United States and Canada, including 10 in Southern California.

Copts living here decided in 1981 to build a church, but it took years to raise the money and acquire the land.

Achieving that was difficult, La Habra resident Fayek Abdelmalak, 52, said, but the congregation never doubted its efforts would pay off.

“We did have hope. We did work hard for it,” he said.

The congregation raised $1.9 million through donations and loans toward building the church. After the church received an additional bank loan of $900,000, construction began in 1989.

The 13,000-square-foot church was built in traditional Coptic architecture, with 35-foot-high arches and four main columns inside, which represent the four Gospels of the Bible. The building has eight classrooms downstairs for Sunday school classes and a special bakery for making holy bread.

Tall, cross-shaped windows allow sunlight to illuminate the church, whose white walls are adorned with depictions of Jesus, Mary and St. Mark.

When the Pope consecrates the church, a red velvet cloth embroidered by nuns in Egypt will rest atop the 5-foot-by-5-foot white marble altar.

During his visit, the Pope will also baptize 15 infants and ordain 34 deacons.

“We’ve been waiting for this day for 11 years,” said Mike Nawar, 41, of Mission Viejo. “We’re very excited about his coming and sharing with us our happiness of the grand opening of our church. We feel like it’s a great accomplishment.”

As the long wait for the papal visit nears its end, Abdelmalak said that he and others have been consumed with frenzied last-minute preparations and “for the last week or so, we’ve hardly even got to eat lunch. We’re excited, happy, thankful.”

Anticipation for the visit is especially strong for the children, Abdelmalak said. For example, his two teen-age daughters have asked if they can stay over at friends’ homes Saturday night so they can sleep near the church and get there first thing in the morning.

“That’s excitement,” he said.