“The 21”. The term has come to denote 21 martyrs, 20 Egyptians and one Ghanaian, martyred in 2015 in Libya. Their story has stunned many in the 21st-century modern world; it is a story that seems to belong not to modern times ruled by pragmatism and down-to-earth practical materialism, but to come straight out of the early centuries of Christianity, when Christians would lay down their lives rather than deny their faith in Jesus Christ.
This year marks 10 years on the martyrdom of The 21.
Lord, have mercy
The 21 were migrant labourers working in Libya. The Egyptians came from Samalout in the region of Minya, some 250km south of Cairo; 13 of them from the village of al-Our. They had been kidnapped by the post-Arab Spring jihadis in eastern Libya, some from their homes and others as they attempted to travel back to Egypt.
Video footage posted by Daesh, commonly known as IS—the Islamic State or ISIS—on 15 February 2015 showed them lined up, kneeling in orange jumpsuits on a spot on the Mediterranean shore in Sirte where they were one by one brutally beheaded by black-clad, masked Daesh executioners. The last words each of the martyrs uttered were a quiet “Oh my Lord Jesus”, or “Lord, have mercy on me”.
One militant, not in black, addressed the camera in English explaining that the beheadings were in retaliation against the “hostile Church of Egypt”. IS said that its arm in Libya had killed “the Coptic crusaders of Egypt”. They said they had filmed the beheading in order to “terrify the whole world”.
It is no secret that Islamists demand of their Christian captives to renounce their faith and convert to Islam at peril of death; the fact that the 21 Christians were executed by IS meant they had staunchly refused to deny their faith.
The horrendous footage sparked global outrage. Egypt, which had overthrown its post-2011 Arab Spring Islamic regime, becoming a secular State in July 2013, responded the following day with air strikes that targeted Daesh bases in Sirte. President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi ordered a church to be built in al-Our in honour of the martyrs. He proposed the church to be named “Church of the Martyrs of Faith and the Nation”, formally recognising the martyrs as martyrs of the Egyptian nation.
No “End” to Synaxarium
Once the beheading had been made public, the martyrs came to be known as the “Libya Martyrs”, and later “The 21”. Pope Tawadros II declared them Martyrs of Faith, and said they would be included in the Coptic Synaxarium, making its most recent entry. “No ‘End’ has been written to the Synaxarium,” the Pope said. “It is still open to this day, and will cite those who laid down their lives for the faith.”
The date 15 February was pronounced the Feast of Modern-Day Martyrs. Together with the Libya Martyrs, it celebrates many other Copts who, during the 21st century, lost their lives on account of their Christian faith.
Copts in general saw the inescapable parallels between the beheaded Copts and the martyrs of the early Church. Bible verses and messages that extoll their faith and willingness to die for it went viral on social media.
Anba Raphail, Bishop of Downtown Cairo, wrote: “The killing of Christians will not terrorise us; it will strengthen our faith. Strength lies not in violence and killing, but in sustaining the pain and suffering of captivity, threats, torture and brutal death, while unshakeably and with free will adhering to the faith, even at the cost of death.”
The martyrdom of the Copts in Libya was depicted by artists Victor Fakhoury, Wagdy Habashy, and the Egyptian-American Tony Rizk. The three paintings drew on the Coptic tradition.
Agony… and comfort
The church promised by President Sisi was duly built in al-Our, and was consecrated by Anba Paphnutius, Metropolitan of Samalout, in February 2018. A shrine was built for the martyrs in the church, where their bodies were placed in May 2018 once they were found by the Libyan authorities and identified by DNA testing. In 2020, the body of the Ghanaian martyr Matthew Ayariga, fondly called Matthew the African by Egyptians, was brought from Libya upon a request from the Coptic Church—which promised to hand him over to his family or country should they claim him—and laid to rest with his fellow martyrs.
Steadily, however, the wrenching pain and agony that had engulfed al-Our when their sons were martyred gave way to divine comfort and profound faith, until the dominant sentiment in al-Our became one of pride and joy; pride because the martyrs chose to die rather than deny their faith, and joy because Egypt gave them the honour they deserve.
The father of Milad Makeen Zaky, one of the martyrs, smiled as he told Watani: “I feel the pain that tormented my heart ever since Milad died has finally subsided.”
Zaky’s mother said she felt the Lord had given her abundant comfort without which she could never have borne the pain of losing her son. She expressed gratitude to President Sisi for his decision to build the church. “As its name suggests, our sons’ martyrdom does not concern us alone, it concerns all Egypt.”
The mother of two martyrs, Bishoi and Samuel Stefanous, said. “I am certain they are now in Heaven where they intercede on our behalf before the Divine Throne.”
Catholic martyrology
In 2023, Pope Francis declared that the Catholic Church recognised The 21 as martyrs of faith and would add them to its Roman Martyrology. That was during a visit to Rome by Pope Tawadros, during which he gifted Pope Francis with relics of the martyrs: parts of the orange jumpsuits that had been soaked in the blood of the martyrs.
“Today we hand over part of their relics, dipped in their blood shed in the name of Christ for the Church, so that they may be remembered in the martyrology,” Pope Tawadros said. “Precisely because saints are among the main pillars of our churches, beginning with St Peter, St Paul, and St Mark,” he said, “we now write in the martyrology of the Church new martyrs who have guarded the faith and bore witness to Christ.”
Pope Francis reiterated: “These martyrs were baptised not only in the water and Spirit, but also in blood, a blood that is the seed of unity for all of Christ’s followers.”
The Feast of the Martyrs on 15 February is now celebrated in both the Coptic Church and the Catholic Church.
Crowns of glory
All churches in Egypt have been celebrating The 21 annually on their feast day, 15 February.
The great commemoration, however, is reserved to the church in al-Our. Led by Anba Paphnutius, the feast day is normally preceded by a week-long spiritual programme which the Copts term “spiritual reawakening”. The programme involves daily morning Mass and evening Vespers followed by hymns, praises, and Bible study or sermons given by Coptic Church senior figures. A procession of white-robed deacons in their red sashes, carrying the pictures of the 21 martyrs wearing their crowns of glory, tours the church, chanting praises especially written for them.
Five years following their gruesome beheading, The 21 were given a museum to their name, and a memorial. Anba Paphnutius unveiled the memorial in an event that witnessed a procession led by the martyrs’ children, the boys in deacon white robes and red sashes, the girls in white, crowned with white daisies. They placed wreaths of white lilies on the heads of the martyrs in the memorial.
The five-metre-high, five-metre-wide memorial was sculpted by Girgis al-Gawly, professor of Sculpture at Minya University. It occupies the place of honour before the church entrance. Made of concrete, it depicts the 21 martyrs—the Ghanaian Ayariga is at the forefront—kneeling as in the video of their beheading. Jesus Christ stands behind, holding them in an open embrace.
The museum showcases a ‘panorama’ documenting their story in photographs and texts in Arabic, English, and French. It reports on their kidnapping and beheading; the arrival of their bodies at Cairo Airport then home to al-Our, the coffins in which their bodies had been flown to Cairo, their passports, orange jumpsuits, the ropes that had bound their hands, and a few belongings found in their pockets. The English and French texts reporting their story come from Watani.
At St Peter’s
On 15 February 2024, the Catholic Church for the first time celebrated the feast day of The 21.
An ecumenical prayer service was held in St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, over which Cardinal Kurt Koch, Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, presided; the relics of the martyrs were placed on the altar and venerated. The Cardinal reflected on the concept of the “ecumenism of blood”.
Attending were Bishop Antonios Aziz Mina, Coptic Catholic Bishop Emeritus of Giza; Fr Theophilos of the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Turin-Rome; and Fr Antonio Gabriel, priest of the Coptic Church of St Mina in Rome.
The voices of Rome’s Coptic Choir, composed of some two dozen boys and young men, swelled in the Chapel in St Peter’s, chanting praises for the martyrs.
The prayer vigil was followed by a screening of the film “The 21: The Power of Faith” in the Vatican Film Library.
The 50-minute documentary, directed by the French-Egyptian filmmaker Samuel Armnius, with support from Pope Tawadros II, tells the story of the Coptic martyrs through a series of interviews with their family members. Mr Armnius said that he had been “deeply moved” by the martyrdom of The 21. “For me,” he said, “there was a very, very strong urge to meet their families, to gather their testimonies, and to understand what really happened.”
The 21: A Journey into the Land of Coptic Martyrs
“The 21: A Journey into the Land of Coptic Martyrs” is the title of a book by Martin Mosebach, translated from the original German into English by Alta L. Price, and published by Plough on 15 February 2019.
Born in 1951 in Frankfurt, Martin Mosebach published novels, stories, and collections of poems, wrote scripts for several films, opera libretti, theatre and radio plays. This book is Mosebach’s 12th. It details his visit to al-Our where he met the martyrs’ families; examined their lives, and learnt about the miracles done through their ‘intermediary’ prayers.
In the Catholic Herald, Jack Carrigan wrote on 14 February 2019 a review of the book, focusing on the inner strength of the migrant workers-turned-martyrs at the hands of Daesh, and the undying faith of their families.
“Mosebach’s book,” Carrigan wrote, “does great service in bringing these young men back into the collective consciousness of the West. For theirs is an extraordinary story of group courage, steadfastness and dignity in the face of an appalling form of death…
“The book seeks an answer to the question: how could these uneducated, humble, largely illiterate migrant workers have found the inner strength to die so nobly, with ‘O my Lord Jesus!’ on their lips? For us their behaviour is almost incomprehensible.
“To find the answer, Mosebach interviews the Coptic Metropolitan and two Coptic priests in Damanhur in the Nile Delta, who were the last persons to have seen the young men before their kidnapping, 43-day captivity, and slaughter.”
Mosenbach’s visit, Carrigan explains, introduced him to families not in mourning for their dead, but who ‘regularly watch the unedited video of their loved ones’ deaths—ironically made by ISIS to inspire terror in those who view it—in order to be edified and uplifted by their sons’ glorious transformation in death into saints in heaven.’
“The Coptic Metropolitan told the author: ‘This is not a Western Church in a Western society. We are the Church of Martyrs’.” Mosebach, impressed by the Metropolitan’s air of authority and strength, comments that he is ‘a kind of leader utterly unknown in the West’. His moral authority and holiness are unquestioned by the faithful, whose lives and faith are completely interwoven.
“The author comes to see the Coptic Church as ‘a kingdom full of splendour and mystery’.” — Wataninet
