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The days after Holy Week are always a bit overwhelming here at Weblog headquarters. Newspapers and magazines around the country run religion stories whether they're newsworthy or not, and our usual search terms get jillions of extraneous results. Still, there have been some truly interesting developments over the last few days, and we've combed through the world's publications to bring you …

1. Two dead, 40 wounded, 100+ detained after three days of Egypt rioting
An Egyptian man, whom the government says suffers from "psychological disturbances," attacked three Coptic Christian churches in Alexandria, Egypt, on Friday. (In Egypt, it wasn't Good Friday, because the Copts and other Orthodox Christians celebrate Holy Week a week later than Western churches do.) One man was killed in the attacks, and local Muslims reportedly didn't like what they heard chanted during the Saturday funeral march. As they say, rioting broke out. The Associated Press reported:

Police fought back against Coptic Christians, who were encircled by a security cordon around the Saints Church in downtown Alexandria after hurling stones and bottles from inside the police line. Fellow demonstrators tossed Molotov cocktails from the balconies of nearby buildings.

Police could be seen repeatedly beating a boy of about 12, who was among the crowd of Coptic young people who fled into the church, slamming the doors behind them, or dashed down narrow streets surrounding the church. Most of the protesters were between the ages of 12 and 25.

Later, a huge mob of what appeared to be Muslim protesters charged the police cordon from the other side.

Mustafa Mohammed Mustafa, a Muslim Brotherhood parliamentarian, said a 24-year-old Muslim died early Sunday of wounds from a beating by Christians during rioting Saturday.

"Violence subsided Monday but sectarian feelings remained high," the news service reported. Bishop Bemwah Ghali told the AP, "There was a sort of a truce, but this is not the end of the crisis. We really need a radical solution that can quell this anger." As CT has regularly reported in the past, it's hard to be a Copt in Egypt.

2. Bob Reccord resigns from North American Mission Board
Bob Reccord, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's domestic missions agency, quit yesterday, two and a half weeks after board trustees announced he would be under "Executive Level controls" in the job he has held since the North American Mission Board was created in 1997. A February article in The Christian Index, the newspaper of the Georgia Baptist Convention, had accused Reccord of mismanaging finances and other faults. A board investigation cleared Reccord of unethical behavior, but the events "created an environment which makes it difficult to lead the organization and to stay on mission," Reccord said.  The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is the only mainstream news source to carry the news, but you'd think that the departure of the head of a $124-million missions agency—especially one that has been so prominent in the Katrina relief efforts—would be bigger news. Religion writers must be taking some time off after the busy Holy Week / Passover rush. Baptist Press and Associated Baptist Press have their articles up. CT will be posting its own news report soon.

3. Judas backlash
The biggest Holy Week backlash against the Gospel of Judas came not from pulpits, but from several of the same mainstream media outlets that had pumped the manuscript earlier in the week. Both The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times question National Geographic's dealings with Swiss art dealer Frieda Nussberger Tchacos, who received a suspended sentence in 2001 for possession of looted antiquities and reported antiquities trafficking. "In the past, she was at the center of the looting in Italy," Italian state prosecutor Paolo Ferri complained to the Los Angeles Times. Archaeological Institute of America president Jane Waldbaum told The New York Times that the Gospel of Judas is itself "a looted object." That's the big reason that Yale University turned Tchacos down when she tried to sell them the article. A Los Angeles Timeseditorial slams Tchacos as a modern Judas: "Thirty pieces of silver then, or $1.5 million now: It's still about money." The paper also savages National Geographic for being more concerned with "commercial zing than scholarly thoughtfulness. … [T]he society's willingness to cut deals over a find whose legality is unclear, without being forthright about its role, its associates or the money involved, adds a legitimate sheen to the shady world of illegal antiquities dealing and helps sustain that unsavory market."

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April (Web-only) 2006, Vol. 50