The Coptic and Abyssinian Martyrs of Libya

A film review

This film tells the tale of the 20 Copts and a Ghanaian who were martyred ten years ago on a Mediterranean coast just outside the Libyan desert. They were put to the sword by Daesh (ISIS). There was another batch of 30 habesha (Ethiopians and Eritreans) martyred by Daesh around the same area two months later. They were shot point-blank. Daesh described the latter batch as follows:

worshippers of the cross belonging to the hostile Ethiopian church.

If I die before you, please put that on my tombstone.

The Copts immediately (fitting of the See of St. Mark to move quickly; do a Gospel of Mark word search on εὐθέως) entered these brave men into their synaxarium (book of saints). The Ethiopian synods were split at the time, but the synod in exile formally prayed for them each year. Work is being done now since the reconciliation in 2018 to formalize this further. Whilst some wicked reformed Protestants at the time denied their being saved, 8 years later, the Roman Catholics formally added them to the Roman Martyrology.

My Hebrew teacher Fr. Paul Nadim Tarazi uses 2nd Century St. Justin Martyr, also known as Justin the Philosopher, as a case study for the ages. Fr. Paul vehemently disagrees with the Platonic philosophy of Justin, but puts all disagreements aside when looking at his life in which he endured to the end as a martyr for Christ. Martyrdom is the litmus test of litmus tests.

I wrote a kinda secular take at HabeshaLA, where I was editor-in-chief, and a more overtly religious take on my blogger (which has since been incorporated into my substack) and video. My informal teacher in dogmatics and canon law and the gospels, and former archbishop of the archdiocese I was born into, then just a hieromonk, covered this subject expertly in an Amharic sermon titled በጆሮ:እንደሰማን:በአይናችን:አየን (be’joro indeseman be’3ynachn 3yen; as we have heard with our ears, we have now seen with our eyes). A play-on-words of Psalm 44:1:

We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us, what work thou didst in their days, in the times of old.

Daesh was storytelling all of this to the world with high-quality video footage. They thought they were broadcasting their victory, but they were in fact broadcasting their defeat. They offered money and safe passage and freedom to 50 people, if only they would deny the Lord Jesus Christ on camera. Diabolical. Not a single man did. And these were not theologians and preachers, but mere laity. Most of these were Afroasiatic Orthodox Christians of Alexandria and Aksum. One, from the Coptic batch, was a Ghanaian named Matthew of unknown religious background, but highly likely to be Protestant and somewhat less likely to be Catholic. He is quoted as having said, “their God is my God.” Straight outta the Scroll of Ruth 1:16. One, from the habesha batch, Jamal, was a Muslim. He had no earthly business being there. “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13 NLT).

I was a student at Pepperdine University School of Law at the time. I remember rocking a commemorative hoodie of the Copts. When a fellow of my cohort asked about the meaning, and I explained to him what happened, he told me, “that is the dumbest thing I have ever heard in my life. I am not a Christian, but even if I was, I would have just denied Jesus, gotten safe passage, then picked up believing Jesus again on the other side.” I had given what was holy to a dog, and cast my pearls before a pig (Matthew 7:6). But do not feel sorry for me; not even for a twinkling of an eye. My awkward situation with this man at my alma mater is legion orders of magnitude milder than what my brothers-in-Christ faced in the wilderness of Libya; where they received “the doxa stephanos (glorious crown; crown of glory) that does not fade away” (1 Peter 5:4; Acts of the Apostles 7:54-60).

I should get back to the film. No? It is a clean and terse (13 mins on-the-dot) mashup of beautiful animation in the style of Coptic iconography and the actual harrowing propaganda footage of the savage islamists’ public defeat. You can hear Arabic, English, and Coptic which borrows from Old Greek.

kyrie eleison. yaraburham. Lord have mercy. May the blessing of the prayers of the Coptic and habesha martyrs of Libya be with us all!

“Come and see” (John 1:39).

Post Scriptum:

Pres. Trump annihilated the burgeoning demonic caliphate in 2019. Whatever personal moral failings he may have, God used him at that time and place. And now, it seems that Pres. Trump is trying his darnedest to wind down the wars between Russia and Ukraine and between the nation-state of Israel and Hamas led Gaza. An insight from Machiavelli that it would behoove Christians to hear is that you cannot really be a good governor and a good Christian. These two are in tension. Perhaps this why Jesus and the apostles were all enemies of the state, although later generations of students embedded with and wedded the state. Being a good governor requires both a level of brutality that is beyond the average intestinal fortitude of a man and a generosity that is likewise above-and-beyond the average man’s bleeding-heart.

"I have always been fond of the West African proverb: 'Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.'"

-Pres. Theodore Roosevelt

This was first used in a private letter around 1900 A.D. to a relatively unknown figure named Henry L. Sprague, and later it became Pres. Theodore Roosevelt’s public catchphrase.