CAIRO: Every Friday, thousands of Christians and a handful of curious Muslims pour into Cairo’s St Mark’s Coptic church to hear Father Makari Yunan preach, drawn by his power to exorcise demons.

Vigorously splashing holy water from a gardening can, the white-bearded Makari has been healing the sick and casting out demons for 32 years. People come from all over Egypt and even from as far afield as the United States.

Throughout the three-hour service, shouts and screams can be heard from the affected, writhing amid the pews.

Some of the people eventually faint, collapsing to the floor. Unconscious, they are picked up by attendants to be unceremoniously dumped near the altar pending their exorcism.

Their prone forms occasionally yelp as the service continues.

“I wasn’t at all right in the head,” says one woman, dripping with sweat and the water recently sprinkled on her by Makari. “I was tired; I was under the power of the spell, but God has cured me and it’s over.” Another jubilant woman says she comes to mass every week since she experienced her own “miracle”.

“I had a baby and then for 10 years I couldn’t get pregnant, so I started coming here and then God cured me and I became pregnant,” she beams.

The priest’s own video production team, complete with several cameramen, is on hand to record each and every healing.

Stalls outside the church sell video and audio recordings of the exorcisms and sermons, but no one will say how much money is made.

The service is also broadcast live on giant screens to thousands sat outside the church, to surrounding chapels and to hundreds more crammed into the darkness under the rafters.

“Some have health problems, others are bewitched and others again are possessed by the devil,” says Makari. “Some have family problems or social and financial worries.” Makari says he discovered his power when he saw a possessed man in the street, went over, said a prayer and the man was healed. “That’s when I realised that God had given me this power. I do it for God and Jesus.” Makari says some Egyptian newspapers and television stations have taken him to task over the presence of Muslims in his congregation.

“I don’t heal people, Jesus does. For me there is no difference between Muslims and Christians. Everything is done in the name of Jesus.

“People know I do this for Jesus. I don’t ask for anything in exchange. I perform a service and it doesn’t matter if people accept it or not.

“It’s normal that Muslims and Christians come to the church,” says Muslim teenager Nur. “Muslims come to be healed by the priest. He’s really very kind, he heals us when we need it.” In Egypt, there is a tradition that Muslims and Christians, the latter thought to account for around 10 per cent of the population, celebrate feasts together.

Historically it was not uncommon for Christian priests to bless Muslim babies, and stories abound of Muslims praying at the shrines of Christian saints, seeking healing, or some sort of blessing.

Some Islamic authorities, such as Sheikh Ali Abdel Baki, director of Al-Azhar University’s Islamic Research Centre, say exorcism happens because of misdiagnosing physical and psychological problems and so it doesn’t matter where a person is “cured”.

“Demons don’t exist,” says the sheikh. “It’s all psychological and that means anyone can provide a cure. It can happen anywhere, in a doctor’s office. It’s not forbidden by Islam.” Even the Coptic church, while recognising Makari’s activities, says only one person in 1,000 who has problems is actually possessed by a real demon.

“Ninety-nine per cent are just having psychological problems,” says Father Abdel Messeeh, teacher of theology at the Institute of Coptic Studies.

“Because of popular belief systems, people think they have demons when they have psychological problems. When they come to us we advise them to see a psychologist but they refuse and so they get cured spiritually by prayer.” “Muslims also want to be healed. If they find a cure with a (Muslim) sheikh then they’ll go there; if they find it with a priest, they’ll go there also.” Messeeh says the rising popularity of exorcism is about Christians getting back to the roots of their religion, in the same way that some Muslims in Egypt are turning towards more fundamentalist interpretations of Islam.

Others say that with life becoming increasingly hard in Egypt, high unemployment and the sky-rocketing cost of living, people will turn to anything in the hope of a cure.

“There are many problems in society. The situation isn’t good; it’s deteriorated,” says Madiha al-Safty, a sociologist at the American University in Cairo.

“So all of a sudden there’s a fertile ground for phantasms to take over.”—AFP