St Giles’ Normanton by Derby were thrilled and honoured to welcome the Most Rev Dr Samy Fawzy Shehata, Archbishop of Alexandria, for the weekend 21-22 July. Archbishop Samy and his wife Madlaine came to express their partnership with St Giles’. Both the morning congregations received them warmly. Archbishop Samy preached at those two services and then joined the whole church community for a fellowship lunch. Archbishop Samy and Madlaine were interviewed during the lunch where they shared something of their life in Egypt. They joined the congregation of the evening service as guests.

In his morning sermon, Archbishop Samy challenged the people of St Giles’ to consider the cost of following Christ. He reminded them of Jesus’ own command to all disciples to “deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me”. He spoke soberingly of the 21 martyrs (20 Egyptians) who were executed by the terrorist ‘Islamic State’ on a beach in Libya in 2015. Just the previous Sunday the General Synod of the Church of England had agreed to add commemoration of these martyrs to the Common Worship calendar each 15 February

Rev Neil Barber, Vicar of St Giles and General Synod member, said “It was an enormous joy to welcome the Archbishop and Madlaine to St Giles’ and to be encouraged by them to keep loving all people as we hold out the good news of Jesus in this locality where there are many people of no faith and other faiths. We are thankful to God for our unity in Christ across the miles and partnership in the gospel.”

Archbishop Samy is the Provincial Archbishop over ten countries in North Africa: Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Tunisia, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia with a total population of 400 million people, as well as Bishop of Egypt. He is also Deputy Chair of the Global South Fellowship of Anglicans (GSFA).