An apparently peaceful demonstration by Copts calling for the right to build new churches erupted into a battle that lasted several hours. It pitted Christians and some Muslim allies against Muslim extremists who fought alongside government troops. Many Christians accused the troops of contributing to the death toll in and near Tahrir Square by attacking the protesters rather than protecting them from extremists.
The worst violence since Hosni Mubarak was ousted from power in February underscored the fragility Egypt's Arab Spring. Sunday's bloody riot also brought into sharp focus the risks for Christian minorities across the Middle East at a time of power vacuums, when long-suppressed Islamic movements are demanding a much larger say in public life.
"We cannot build Coptic churches and there are bad men who destroy our churches, especially in the countryside, because the state is weak right now," said Guardious.
"I love this country to the bottom of my heart. But there are some here who do not like us. It is not all the people. We live side by side with the Muslims. And we don't want to leave."
The 74-year old priest from the Nile Delta spoke before overseeing a funeral in the Church of the Virgin Mary in Cairo. The church was one of two firebombed in the mixed Christian-Muslim community of Imbaba last month, resulting in 15 deaths. A chapel on the third floor of Virgin Mary was destroyed. The church had been expanding vertically because getting planning permission to grow horizontally or to build new churches is immensely difficult.
Although by far the largest Christian denomination in the Middle East, Egypt's 10 million Copts are still vastly outnumbered by the country's 70 million Muslims. They worry about their future in the wake of the grim example left by the Christian minority in Iraq, which numbered more than one million before Saddam Hussein's fall in 2003 but plunged to about 400,000 after many fled following a campaign of bombings. There also have been heightened tensions between Christians and Muslims in Syria and in Lebanon.
"There is prejudice against us. We are outcasts," said Josephine Kadry, 36, who claimed she had been repeatedly passed over for promotion in the ministry where she worked.
"There have always been problems with Christians getting higher posts in government. Those problems will now be doubled. We feel our kids are threatened and this fear is worse since the revolution. Our kids are told at school that they are atheists."
"The oppression is worse in less-privileged areas," said Kadry's friend, Mona Shaker, a 29-year-old unemployed seamstress. "You have to cover your cross or you will never get a job."
Many Christians blame the more toxic religious environment on the Muslim Brotherhood, which could wield considerable political power if elections promised by the army finally take place later this year and next year.
"It is not only the Muslim Brotherhood that is a problem. It is the Salafis. We don't trust them," said store owner, Boshra Salib, 59, referring to a group with strong links to Saudi Wahhabism and its puritanical interpretation of Islam. The Salafis are thought to be behind much of the religious unrest in Egypt, including Sunday's violence.
Not everyone blames the Brotherhood. Publisher Hesham Kassem said he doesn't see the Muslim Brotherhood gaining a large political voice at the ballot box or acting as a direct threat to Coptic Christians.
"Although they were not involved, the attacks on Christians have been very damaging to the Muslim Brotherhood politically," Kassem said. "They would uphold the existing discrimination and perhaps even increase it but not by burning churches, because there has been a populist reaction against attacks on churches.
"However, there are certain groups of Muslims who do not believe that Christians should live among us. The sentiment from those circles is being released. I would anticipate more attacks on churches but there will also be more citizens against this. Public sentiment is really taking a position on this so the Brotherhood will try to keep the Salafis in check on this."
As for the possibility of a religion-based civil war, "to have such a conflict you need a bigger Christian minority than 10 or 12 per cent," Kassem said.
"The Copts have reason to be vigilant but not afraid because there are millions of them," said Ezz El-Din Shoukry, a Canadian-educated political-science professor at the American University of Cairo. "If they mobilize they can be the single most important unified political community. It is not the Muslim Brotherhood that is creating problems for the church. It is the Salafis."
The Muslim Brotherhood has denounced violence and agrees "with the national consensus that Christians should have complete rights because a good Muslim must be fair to everyone," said Amr Darrag, secretary general of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party.
"The Salafis give us a bad reputation by their behaviour and some people do not differentiate between us and them. But in the more open environment we have today, extremist ideas all fade away."
An engineering professor at Cairo University who earned his doctorate in the U.S., Darrag was vague about his Brotherhood's plans for greater fairness in employment for Christians or whether the organization would allow them to build more churches. His answer was that religious Muslims also had faced discrimination in employment at places such as universities and had been prevented from building mosques by Mubarak's regime.
"The Muslim Brotherhood might treat Christians fairly but others who get into power might not care at all," said Zakharias Erian, 35, who joined Guardious at the funeral at the Virgin Mary Church.
"We don't want extremists who use the gun to impose their views. And this is a possibility. If moderates come to power, we will be fine because there are others here who wish to live in a secular state. If extremists come to power, our church will deteriorate. I really can't guess about the future of the church. We have to see where the state goes."
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