EGYPT. Deir El-Adra. Friday mass in the church of Santa Helena. Orthodox graffiti dug on the column look like pharaonic hieroglyphs. Copts are the ancient and proud heirs of Pharaonic culture, surviving Islam and the Arab conquest. Today they complain of descrimination rather than persecution. The current wave of militant Islamism - Copts have been killed in upper Egypt- has drawn the community closer together, enhancing the influence of their clergy, a very conservative one. 1997.