The Birmingham 2nd Meeting of the Coptic Medical Society

Venue: The Coptic Centre, Hockley Heath, West midlands

5th July 2003

First speaker was Mr David Radford, Sat-7’s Development Director for Great Britain and Ireland. In his talk he explained the following;

What is Sat-7?

Sat-7 is a non-denominational Christian Television Broadcaster providing daily programming in Arabic from the Middle East and for the Middle East.

What is its vision?

A growing church in the ME, confident in Christian faith, serving the community and contributing to the good of society and culture.

What is its’ mission?

To provide the churches and Christians of the ME with an opportunity to witness to Jesus Christ through inspirational, informative and educational television services.

Any connection with the Coptic Church?

Sat-7 has 3 Coptic Bishops on its board and frequently features the Coptic Church, Pope Shenouda III along with Coptic prayers, songs and tradition.

Second speaker was: Dr Ashraf Sadek, Professor of Egyptology at the University of Limoge, France. He is a renowned Coptologist and the main editor of the Encyclopaedic Collection “Le Monde Copte”. Prof. Sadek spoke about ‘The role of women in Ancient Egypt.” In his very interesting talk, Prof. Sadek covered the following point

• A quick review of the periods of Egyptian history and its’ dynasties.
• The powerful role Egyptian women played through the ages as queens, mothers, wives, sisters or daughters.
• The great care Ancient Egyptian women gave to their appearance, figure and make-up.
• The tremendous care and kindness both husbands and wives were expected to treat their partners with.
• The human rights and freedom, women of Ancient Egypt enjoyed.

Dr Ashraf Sadek expanded on some goddesses and queens, for example;

Isis the devoted wife of Osiris and the mother of Horus.

Hatshepsut, the capable queen who reigned like a king. To strengthen her position she claimed she was the daughter of “Amun-Ra”.

Nefertitie, the beautiful queen, who believed in “Aten” and followed her husband Akhenaten to the new capit al “Akhetaten” and remained loyal to her faith till the end.

Nefertari, wife of Rameses II, whose magnificent tomb is in the valley of Queens.

Questions were then asked and the day ended by prayers.

Reported by Laila Farid