A vicar is appointed, with full powers to guide the Coptic Catholic Church from the moment that the Patriarch of Alexandria, Cardinal Antonios Naguib, becomes seriously ill and cannot perform his duties.
The news from Cairo tells of a choice made in recent days by the Synod of this small but currently very significant Eastern Church.
A few weeks ago, in fact, Patriarch Naguib - a well-known personality in the Middle East - and in 2011 (a very heated year for the Christians of Egypt) a strong voice in affirming the vital importance of the issue of respect for religious freedom - suffered a stroke, and is currently unable to carry out his ministry.
Coptic Catholic bishops have therefore decided to assign a vicar to assist him in his duties: the Bishop of Assiut, Kyrillos Kamal William Samaan, a 65-year old Franciscan friar.
But this is not a matter of a simple assistant: the appointment was made under Canon 132 of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches - the Canon Law text for Coptic Catholics - which is very precise in specifying that this is an option reserved for very serious illness.
The first paragraph of Canon 132 states that "When the Patriarchal See, for whatever reason, is impeded such that the Patriarch cannot even communicate by letter with eparchial bishops of the Church over which he presides, the Government of the Patriarchal Church, under Canon 130, shall fall to the most senior eparchial bishop through episcopal ordination, within the boundaries of the territory of the Church, if he himself is not impeded, unless the Patriarch has failed to appoint another bishop or, in cases of extreme necessity, also a priest."
Bishop William Samaan, therefore, has been granted full jurisdiction, the same as that indicated when the seat of Alexandria falls vacant.
Cardinal Naguib's illness has come as a serious blow to the Coptic Catholic community, a Church made up of just 200,000 followers (0.25 per cent of Egypt's population), but which has often become the international voice for the other 8 million Copts of the ancient local Church still not in communion with Rome.
It is a community that has in recent years experienced serious persecution by Islamic extremists. Apart from Cardinal Naguib’s serious health condition, then, it is not difficult to imagine that the delicacy of the current political phase in Cairo, and the need to have a leader capable of moving and being heard even outside the country, were taken into consideration in the Synod’s choice to utilize this type of response.
In his first words to the faithful, Bishop Samaan invited Catholic Copts to continue "to pray in all the churches for fast healing of the Patriarch, that he may soon return to lead our Church."
He added that he will follow the path set out by Cardinal Naguib, "stressing the importance of openness and dialogue, especially during the very sensitive political phase that our beloved Egypt is going through."
Samaan was born in the village of Shanaynah, near Assiut. In the early eighties, he studied in Rome at the Pontifical Biblical Institute and at the Gregorian University.
A bishop since 1990, during these years he participated in a dialogue between Christians and Muslims sponsored by Oasis Foundation of Venice. Since last November, he has also been a member of the Executive Committee of the Council of Churches of the Middle East.
The news of Patriarch Naguib's serious health condition is intertwined with that of the Consistory held in Rome at this time.
The Patriarch of Alexandria is in fact a well-respected figure within the College of Cardinals: he will turn 77 years old on 7 March, elected by the Coptic bishops in 2006 as head of its most important See and, in October 2010, general rapporteur for the Synod for the Middle East, before being created cardinal by Benedict XVI in the consistory of 20 November 2010.
He is currently the sole representative of the Eastern Catholic Churches among cardinals under the age of eighty, and will remain so even after February 18, because - unexpectedly - Maronite Patriarch, the Lebanese Bechara Rai, has been left off the list of new cardinals announced on January 6.
Assuming, then, that a conclave will be held before a new consistory, it is possible that no representative of Christians in the Middle East will be present among the cardinals in the Sistine Chapel to choose the new Pope.