interesting election coming up

The news of the day in Egypt was the death of Pope Shenouda of the Coptic Church at age 88, having served in that position for 41 years.

This evening I realized that I had no idea how they choose a new Pope, and to what extent the process resembles or differs from that of Roman Catholics. I’ve found two web sources which say that it works like this:

1. The Coptic leadership settles on three candidates.

2. The name of the winning candidate is drawn randomly by a blindfolded boy.

It’s a fascinating system, and apparently the late Pope Shenouda was chosen in precisely this manner in 1971. Then as now, the Pope died in March, and in 1971 the election for his successor was held in October. Whether or not that’s the normal waiting period, I was unable to determine from reading either of the two web sources I found.