Vatican City, 15 February, 2021 / 5:25 pm (ACI Africa).
Pope Francis has praised the courageous witness of the 21 Coptic Orthodox Christians killed by ISIS in 2015, calling them “saints of all Christians.”
In a video message for the “Day of Contemporary Martyrs” Feb. 15, the pope said, “I hold in my heart that baptism of blood, those twenty-one men baptized as Christians with water and the Spirit.”
“I thank God our Father because he gave us these courageous brothers. I thank the Holy Spirit because he gave them the strength and consistency to confess Jesus Christ to the point of shedding blood. I thank the bishops, the priests of the Coptic sister Church which raised them and taught them to grow in the faith. And I thank the mothers of these people, of these 21 men, who ‘nursed’ them in the faith,” he said.
Francis sent the video message for an online event organized by the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of London to give thanks for the lives of contemporary martyred Christians.
The webinar was held on the anniversary of the martyrdom of the 21 Egyptian Copts who were kidnapped and beheaded by ISIS in Libya on Feb. 15, 2015.
