His Holiness commended the Economic Conference that was held last week, and what President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi said during it, admiring the ability of Egypt to provide the needs of Egyptians, while some countries can’t due to the economic crisis.

This wad before His Holiness delivered the weekly Wednesday sermon this evening at the Papal Residency in Cairo.
His Holiness, on behalf of the Coptic Orthodox Church, welcomed The United Nations Climate Conference which will be held in Sharm El-Sheikh next week, referring to the initiated project “Plant A Tree” which was launched by the Coptic Church in support of this important event.

His Holiness warned against subversive calls, stressing that they do not find ears to listen to, stressing that what is important is the safety of our homeland and the safety of society.
His Holiness also said:
I would like to thank the political leaders and the Egyptian government, for holding the Economic Conference last week, in which the President and the Prime Minister spoke and gave a comprehensive, historical lecture, supported by data and statistics, in the presence of a large number of officials, ministers and economy specialists. The conference had great results, whether instant results or in the short term. Also, through the conference there was social assistance provided to aid in facing the economic crisis that the whole world is facing.

Like many other countries in the world or most countries of the world, Egypt is facing an unprecedented economic crisis. Some say that it may be since World War II, but this crisis is also related to energy, meaning that it is also related to the sources of energy.
We thank our Lord that our country Egypt, despite its capabilities and its limited economy, is able to provide and maintain all the needs of its people, with its leaders. Some of our neighbouring countries have power outage for an hour or two in a day. Other countries suffer during the winter season due to lack of energy, gas, oil and heating, especially those countries that get snow during winter. We thank our Lord for our country and we pray that the Lord preserves it. All destructive calls that are said in any form does not have ears to be listened to, because what is important is the safety of our country and society, and a wise person does not exacerbate problems by causing more problem but rather thinks for innovative solutions.
We thank our God that the production sector is developing and being renewed in a creative way, and the presidential initiative project “Start” is a very strong initiative and to get out of this crisis would be through the production sector and the people’s work in production and exporting. This is what will solve the problem.

Also, with the name of the Church and the Egyptian society, we welcome COP 27 Climate Conference that is being hosted in Egypt. In fact, this is a great pride for Egypt because this is an international conference which is usually held in the safest countries. Last year it was in Glasgow, UK and this year it is in Egypt. This is recognition for the safety and security in Egypt.
This conference will be held in Madinat El Salam in Sharm El-Sheikh. We welcome the Presidents of different countries from all over the world and Government Officials and all the participants, whose number is reaching 30000 participants.
There were rumors about Egypt responsible for the budget of the conference, however, the budget of the conference is looked after by the United Nations, The European Union and other International bodies.
We would like to welcome the conference, which will last few days.
In our Church, we started an initiative called “Plant A Tree”, which is an important initiative and many places have started planting thousands of trees and we were also teaching our children how to look after our environment and how to plant trees. We also held courses on how to plant trees in different places. Also, in St. Mark’s Cathedral in Abbaseya, Cairo, we made banners about protecting our environment and how we are all responsible for taking care of our environment. We also run awareness sessions, for example about that health is more important than plastic as refusing plastic has been a global thing nowadays because of the many dangers.
We wish this conference to be successful and that it meets its goals. Egypt has been preparing for this conference for the past year and we have made a cooperation protocol between us, the Coptic Church, and the Ministry of Environment and Dr. Yasmine Foaud on how to participate in all the efforts made in order to protect our environment.
May God bless this work and may it present a great image of Egypt which represents Africa and the Mediterranean area and the Arab countries because of its great history that the whole world can see.

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