20120320
Press TV
At least three mourners have been crushed to death while worshippers came to see the Egyptian Coptic patriarch Pope Shenouda III one last time as he was seated on his wooden throne.
On Sunday, some 137 others were also injured as tens of thousands gathered at Cairo's main Abbasiya cathedral to offer respect to the late patriarch of Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Church.
The Coptic Orthodox Church announced a state of mourning following the spiritual leader’s death on Saturday. Shenouda, 88, had been battling liver and lung problems for several years.
A funeral prayer is to be held on Tuesday at the papal headquarters in the Abbassiya district of Cairo.
Shenouda, who served for four decades, often called for peace and harmony between people of different religions.
The Coptic Church of Alexandria is to select a new pope amid a fragile period of political instability following the country’s popular uprising last year.
Coptic Christians have also been the target of Egypt’s ruling military junta since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak early last February.
On October 9, 2011, Egypt's military forces attacked a protest rally by Coptic Christians in Cairo, killing 27 people, mostly Christians, and wounding at least 300 others.
Egyptian Christians make up 10 percent of the country’s 84.5-million population.
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