"The Copts have been always focused on Egypt; it is our identity, it is our nation, it is our land, it is our language, it is our culture. But when some of the Egyptians converted to Islam, their focus changed away from looking to their own [language and culture]. They started to look at the Arabians, and Arabia became the main focus," adding that, "if not Arabs, we you come to a Coptic person and tell him that he's an Arab, that's offensive., reemphasizing: We are Egyptians.

Declaring: "I am very happy to be an Egyptian and I would not accept being an "Arab" because ethnically I am not." The Bishop went on to say, "that means shifting the identity of the nation, to belong to Arabism and to the widespread Arabic area ...and this is a big dilemma for the Copts who kept their Christianity, or, I rather say, that they kept their identity as Egyptians [who have] their own culture, that of old and real original Egypt trying to keep it, The process of Arabization

and Islamization are still actively working till now upon Copts, The Bishop argued that the Egyptian culture has been taken from the Copts and attributed to the Arabs, that the process of Islamization is still on-going, and that the Christian child has "to study the history of the victorious Islamic invaders, which means that as a little kid you have to praise the Arabic troops that came to your country." ... [source], like Assyrians, Armenians & Jews, the Copts are of the very few middle eastern indigenous communities to be surviving the Arabs/Muslims'.

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