Zakaria Botros – How One Radical Priest Became al-Qaeda's Most Wanted

Yesterday on November 13, a hashtag launched and trended in Egypt in love and defense of the Prophet of Islam (PBUH).

The hashtag circulated after the infamous Egyptian bishop Zakaria Botros spilled hate words and cursed the prophet of Islam, although the video is some 15 years old.

Botros is widely known for his harsh criticism and attack on Islam, he always deliberately demines the Prophet and agitates Muslim viewers in his TV shows and programs.

 

 

 

Early Life

Zakaria Botros is an Orthodox Coptic bishop born in 1934, in Shabin al-Kum, Egypt. He then transferred to Tanta, returned to The Church of St. Mark in Cairo, then worked as a priest in Australia in 1992, then he returned to Egypt and then worked in Brighton, England.

He studied at the Faculty of Arts and obtained a bachelor's degree in history, his brother was assassinated by Islamic groups by which he inherited from his brother his gospel, which later became the Gospel of Botros himself.

World magazine gave him the Daniel of the Year award for his 2008 talk show “Truth Talk”. The New Human newspaper described him as the number one opponent of Islam. Al-Qaeda has also put a bounty on his head for about $60 million.

 

Satellite TV Shows

In 2003, Zakaria Botros launched his satellite TV channel called “Life TV” from Cyprus, through which he broadcasted all of his ideas.

He describes his method as “giving a short, sharp shock to the Muslim viewer, just like an electric shock.”

His satellite channel was watched by 60 million Arabs at its peak, and CBN News described him in 2009 as the most hated man in the Middle East.

In 2010, BBC Arabic received a letter from the American missionary organization Joyce Meyer, saying that its Middle East mediator had informed her that The Missionary Life TV Channel had decided to stop broadcasting the programs of priest Zakaria Botros.

The organization, which ranks Life TV as one of its main partners and the most successful in reaching the Muslim world, said: "We inform you, as we have said…This is the last month of Father Peter's programs on Al-Hayat [Life TV]."

Zakaria opened his own channel in April 2011, which he called "Alfady." It has been broadcasting in North America and the Middle East since November 2011.

 

Scandals

In 1999, The Egyptian Church received a letter from Father Daniel, an Egyptian priest who was Bishop of Sydney at the time, informing the Egyptian side that a Christian mother complained to Daniel about Zakaria Botros’ sexual harassment of her son, threating that she will report to the Australian police.

In the same letter, Father Daniel told the Egyptian church that in 2001, while Botros was in Los Angeles, Botros received an Asian girl and told his fellow church servants that the girl is a Muslim from Indonesia, and she came to the church in LA for security and protection from her relatives.

The pastors then discovered that the girl was neither Muslim nor Indonesian, rather she was a prostitute from Philippines, doing her work in the church hostels, with Botros receiving part of her profit.

Father Daniel also complained to the Egyptian Church from Botros’ family; his son was followed by Australian police for drug abuse, and his daughter was running a strip club.

His scandals were circulated on TV channels, Islamic blogs, back from 2006 till 2011.

Since 2011, Zakaria Botros has been a lot less famous than before, some even never heard his name, after he had been a regular topic on TV talk shows.

 

Church Position

When the video circulated social media once again, the Egyptian Church immediately issued a statement on social media pages announcing his dismissal from the official hierarchy of the church.

 

 

A source told Al-Estiklal that his dismissal in 2002 was due to his protastantic trend, and anything else. He has been previously banned from the church from 1978 to 1987, as Bishop Bishoy confirmed in a live Q&A session.

Back in 2003, Bishop Bishoy, secretary of the Holy Council of the Orthodox Church, stated in an interview with Al-Tarik newspaper on 4 March 2008 that Zakaria Botros was suspended again, but this time permanently, since 2002 from prayer and education in the Coptic Orthodox Church because he had converted to the Pentecostal Evangelical (Protestant) doctrine.

In fact, Zakraia Botros resigned from the church, and he was not expelled, as official documents of the church show.

Ahmed Sebaei, an Islamic activist who specializes in responding to evangelization, wrote a Facebook post in 2020 that although the church doesn’t comment on Botros’ actions and attack on Islam, it secretly accepts them.

“Why doesn't the Church disown Zakaria Boutros in public? Why doesn't Pope Tawadros go out to deny what Zakaria is doing?” he asked.

“Simply because they are satisfied with him, and more than one person who was looking for the truth, and when he went to the father of his confession in the Canon, they are told: "Follow our Father Zakaria,” he added.

Although Sebaei is under Sisi’s detention now, his post was widely spread on social media.