I’ll start with full disclosure. I was never Coptic. I was engaged to a Coptic girl at one time.

I sat through many liturgies and personal lectures from two different abounas.

Those of you who left, I admire you. I respect you. It takes untold courage and unmeasured fortitude to leave a church so entwined with the culture they become seemingly inseparable.

Those of you who call the church out for its underlying misogyny, you’re right. I am from the American South, and how a woman is treated herein makes my blood boil. I could never place a woman so low as the church does.

You ladies who left, good for you. Especially those of you in the diaspora finding themselves in the United States. You never have deserved the caustic degradations forced upon you by the church. You’re women who deserved to be recognized as equal and true partners to those you spend your lives with. Not reduced to servants.

For those of you who left for theological reasons, I have to agree. To read something and be told it means something completely different isn’t only dishonest, it’s blatant gaslighting. Good for you for seeing through it.

If any of you are looking for a friend, who isn’t necessarily of you, I’m always glad to listen and talk.