|
|
In Memoriam
Adel Bestavros
was born in Alexandria, Egypt, on March 23rd, 1924 -- the first-born son of
Victoria (Iskander Yacoub) and Azer (Bestavros Hanna AbdelMalek ElNaggar).
His father, Azer
Bestavros, was a distinguished lawyer and Head of the Syndicate of Lawyers in
Alexandria, Egypt, and an ordained Deacon, serving the altar of the Cathedral of
Saint Mark Coptic Orthodox Church in Alexandria. His mother, Victoria, a graduate of the British School in Alexandria, was a housewife who
raised four children: Adel, Isis, Naguib, and Nabil.
Adel Bestavros
obtained his high-school diploma in Letters in 1941. Having ranked top of his
graduating class from the School of Saint Mark in Alexandria, he was admitted to
the Law School of the University of Fouad The First (Alexandria University). In
1945, he obtained the Bachelor of Laws (LLB) degree with distinction and was
appointed as District Attorney for the Attarin District in Alexandria. In 1947,
he was awarded a fellowship towards a PhD in international law at the University
of Glasgow in Scotland. In 1949, he obtained a Masters in International Maritime
Law. Later that year, his doctoral studies at Glasgow were cut short by the sudden
death of his father, which forced him to go back to Alexandria, Egypt, where he
took over his father's practice, which he kept until his retirement fifty years
later in 1999. In 1957, he endured another
significant loss, when his 31-year-old brother Naguib, whom "he loved in truth"
died after a long battle with diabetes.
Adel Bestavros' illustrious career included his ascent as a supreme
court lawyer in Egypt, his tenure with Abdel-Hadi, Yansouni, and El-Deeb law
firm, and his participation in drafting the maritime laws of a number of Arab
Gulf states. He held academic appointments at Alexandria University Law School
and at the Arab Academy for Science and Technology, where he taught special
courses on International Maritime Law. Some of the landmark cases he argued and won in
Egyptian court included a case against the Egyptian Government's intentional
sinking of ships in the Suez Canal, on the heels of the 1967 war with Israel --
a case that lasted for over 20 years. Throughout his distinguished legal career,
he represented all types of clients, from world-wide organizations and
corporations like the World Bank and the Lloyds of London, to individuals who
could not afford legal representation.
Adel Bestavros
was a fervent servant, preacher, and scholar of the Christian Coptic Orthodox
Church. From a very young age, he developed a passion for biblical studies.
During his high-school and college years, he participated in Bible studies
organized by British evangelists in Alexandria, Egypt. In 1946, when asked by
these evangelists to leave his mother church, the Apostolic Coptic Orthodox
Church of Egypt, on the grounds that it was a backward, dying church, led by a
cohort of uneducated clergy, he proclaimed: "If my Church is dying, then it is
my duty to resuscitate it". Indeed, in 1946, he was the youngest of a
handful of professional lay people who founded a society named "ElRabta
ElMorkoseya", which means "Alliance of Saint Mark".
Headquartered a stone's throw away from the Cathedral of Saint Mark in
Alexandria, this society was dedicated to the spiritual growth of its members,
to extending social services to poor and needy Copts all over Egypt, and to the
reformation of church governance. For over fifty years, he gave a weekly one-hour
sermon (every Friday evening), as part of a Bible Study on the New Testament,
which was followed by a fellowship meeting in which society members discussed
their various activities and plans. In addition to delivering these weekly
sermons, he was a frequent preacher during regular services in many churches in
Alexandria, including the Cathedral of Saint Mark, the Church of Saint Mina
in Fleming, the Church of Saint Mary and Saint Joseph in Semouha, and in youth and college-level youth meetings, including those at
the Church of the Virgin Mary in Moharam Bek and the Church of Saint George in
Sporting. His sermons were unique in their unyielding defense of the Christian
faith, their extensive use of the Holy scriptures, their emphasis of history and primary sources, and their reliance
on the writings of Early Church Fathers, most notably Saint Athanasius, Saint
Augustine, and Saint John Chrysostom, as well as contemporary Christian writers,
most notably C. S. Lewis and Billy Graham.
Adel Bestavros
was ordained deacon, serving the Altar of the Cathedral of Saint Mark in Alexandria, by Pope Yossab (Joseph) The Second in the early
1950s. For many decades, he served on the councils of many churches in
Alexandria, including Saint Mark's Cathedral and Saint Mina's Church in Fleming. He was one of
seven elected members to serve on the National
Lay Council ("ElMagles ElMellee") of the Coptic Church in 1957 -- a council that was credited
with instituting much needed reforms in church governance, including the
establishment of an oversight committee for the management of the Coptic
Church's Estates, and the development of the current protocol for the selection
of the Coptic Pope -- the protocol that in 1959 led to elevating a monk named
Azer to become Pope Kyrillos (Cyril) VI, the 116th Pope of the See of Saint
Mark, whose spiritual leadership of the Church is credited by many as ushering
an unprecedented period of renewal and spiritual growth.
Adel Bestavros acted
both as legal counsel and confidant of Pope Kyrillos (Cyril) VI. He wrote many arguments
and legal opinions on behalf of the Pope concerning a wide range of topics
related to the constitutionality of various Egyptian Laws (especially on issues
of divorce, inheritance, and freedom of religion). For almost three decades, he
served on the Coptic Estate Council ("Hay'et ElAwkaf"), and represented the Coptic Church (and
delivered its reports) in many meetings of the World Council of Churches. After
the departure of Pope Kyrillos in 1971, and under the leadership of Pope
Shenouda III, he continued to serve in many of these capacities including
his continued service on the Coptic Estate Council, his appointment as a
instructor at the Coptic Seminary School in Alexandria, and his election to the
reconstituted National Lay Council of the Coptic Church in 1978.
Adel Bestavros
was married on September 4, 1960 to Rachel (Abdou Henein), then a
sophomore in the Law School at Alexandria University, and who he met through her
brother Father Yohanna (John) Henein, the first university-educated priest to be
ordained in the Coptic Church. Together, they raised their four children, Azer
(born in 1961), Marie (born in 1962), Jeanne (born in 1968), and Naguib (born in
1971), in a small apartment in a building abutting the one in which he grew up.
Adel Bestavros'
visibility as a prominent professional, and as a leader of the Coptic Church's
laity earned him the wrath of President Anwar Sadat's secret service police. In
September, 1981, and in an attempt to preempt the tide of the Islamic movement
aiming to topple him (and which a month later succeeded in assassinating him),
Sadat ordered his secret service to arrest and detain thousands of Islamic
extremists. And, in a flagrant attempt to appease the majority of Moslems in
Egypt by portraying his preemptive strike as an effort to preserve national
unity between Moslems and Christians, Sadat also ordered the detention of key
Coptic leaders, including Pope Shenouda III, a handful of Bishops, a few dozen
priests, and a few dozen leaders from the Coptic Church's laity, including Adel
Bestavros. For the five months that followed his abduction from his home in
Alexandria, and his detention in a number of jails and prison camps in the
outskirts of Cairo, Adel Bestavros wrote some of his most precious spiritual
reflections. He was never charged, and eventually was released on the eve of the
Feast of Theophany in January 1982.
Adel Bestavros
traveled extensively. In addition to his residence in Glasgow, Scotland, for his
graduate studies, he later traveled to many destinations within the United
Kingdom, including England, Ireland, and Wales. His legal representation in
Egypt of various international entities brought him to a number of countries in
Europe, including France, Italy, Germany, Austria,
Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, a number of destinations in the Middle East, including
Syria, Oman, Bahrain, Dubai, and Qatar, and most major cities in the United
States, including New York,
Washington DC, Atlanta, Chicago, and Seattle. In a number of trips to the United
States, he visited family
and friends in Massachusetts, Michigan, and Rhode Island. Of
all of these trips, his most memorable was his pilgrimage to the Holy Land with
his wife Rachel and his son Azer during the Paschal week and Easter of 1965.
Adel Bestavros
passed away peacefully on January 9, 2005, while sitting with his wife Rachel,
son Naguib, and daughter Jeanne and their families, just past midnight of the
day after Orthodox Christmas, which he celebrated with his family in his
apartment in Alexandria, as he has done for decades. He is survived by his wife,
his four children, his eight grandchildren, and by scores of others who adopted
him as a fatherly figure and as a teacher.
|
