The clampdown comes amid fears of new protests by Copts following overnight clashes at Cairo's St. Mark's Cathedral — headquarters of Coptic leader Pope Shenouda III — during which 45 policemen were wounded. The protesters pelted with rocks a minister who had come to visit the pope and heckled other government officials while other demonstrators blocked off four main streets in Cairo before police dispersed them.
Coptic Christmas will fall on Friday — the weekly Muslim day of prayer and rest — and Shenouda said he intended to say mass as usual on Christmas Eve.
"Not praying would mean that terrorism has deprived us of celebrating the birth of Christ," the official Al-Ahram newspaper quoted him as saying.
Twenty-one people were killed early on New Year's Day and 79 wounded when an apparent suicide bomber detonated his payload as hundreds of worshippers were leaving midnight at Al-Qiddissin (The Saints) church in Alexandria.
Al-Ahram quoted security officials as saying that the bomb was a sophisticated device packed with TNT and pieces of metal to cause the largest number of casualties possible.
No one claimed responsibility for the attack, which came two months after an Al-Qaeda linked group which claimed responsibility for a deadly Baghdad church hostage-taking threatened Coptic Christians.
The group demanded the release of two women, Camelia Shehata and Wafa Constantine, both priests' wives, it said the church was holding against their will after they converted to Islam.
Shehata, like Constantine in 2004, had escaped her husband last year and reportedly wanted a divorce, something that is very difficult to obtain from the Coptic church.
The church has denied that either of the women converted. Women's rights activists say Coptic women have been known to convert, either to Islam or another Christian denomination, to escape unhappy marriages.
Church was on hit list
An Al-Qaeda website had identified in December the church in Alexandria as being among Coptic places of worship designated as targets.
Al-Qiddissin church was on a list posted by Al-Qaeda-linked Shumukh Al-Islam website of 50 Coptic churches across Egypt.
Coptic churches in several European countries, including France, Germany and Britain, also figured on the list, which was posted on Dec. 2.
A message announcing "bomb attacks against churches during Christmas... when they will be most crowded" was posted alongside the list of would-be targets.
"Get up and give up sleep," said the message.
"This is an important notice on bomb attacks against churches during Christmas," it said.
It urged "every Muslim who cares about the honor of his sisters to bomb these churches during Christmas celebrations, when they will be most crowded."
