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| The head of Egypt?s Coptic Church, Pope Tawadros II, at the Nativity of Christ Cathedral east of Cairo on January 6, 2018 |
The head of Egypt's Coptic Church, Pope Tawadros II, has shut down his Facebook page, saying it was a "waste of time", after the church ordered monks off social media.
State-run
Al-Ahram newspaper said on Saturday that Tawadros's decision was in line with a
dozen measures announced Thursday by the church relating to the activities of
monks.
One of the
measures gave monks a month "to deactivate and close any social media
pages or accounts and voluntarily renounce these behaviours that are not true
to monastic life".
On Thursday
the church also said it will stop accepting any new monks for a year after the
mysterious death of a bishop at a monastery northwest of Cairo.
In his last
posting on Facebook before shutting the page, Tawadros said that using social
media is a "waste of time, age and life".
"That
is why I am shutting down my personal Facebook page and I salute all my
brothers and sons who have followed the instructions of my sacred church".
According
to Al-Ahram, several senior Coptic Church officials have followed Tawadros's
example and shut down their Facebook pages.
Tawadros
became pope in 2012, and according to Egyptian media has not been active on
Facebook since he opened his page in 2009.
Coptic
Christians make up about 10 percent of Egypt's predominantly Sunni Muslim
population of 100 million.
Meanwhile
Egyptian police continue their investigation into the death of Bishop
Epiphanius, the 68-year-old abbot of Saint Macarius monastery in Wadi
el-Natrun, who was found with head injuries on Sunday.
A security
official has said his death was being investigated as a possible murder.
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