In Egypt, more than 100 Coptic Christians have recently left the church in a dispute over its strict divorce laws. Many plan on joining the Catholic or evangelical churches.
A man leaving the church told Al Jazeera's Sherine Tadros that the strict laws are torture.
Some followers are questioning whether the canons should be changed after Pope Shenouda III restricted divorce to cases of adultery or conversion to another religion, and some question whether the Pope had the right to take such a stand. His revisions exclude justifications of impotence, abandonment, abuse and mental disability which was allowed by the 1938 Coptic bylaws. Pope Shenouda believes that marriage is a matter of a union between man, woman and God and that it is a religious, not a civil issue.
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