Athanasius, Metropolitan of Beni Suef

It took years for Pope Shenouda to reconcile with Bishop Athanasius. In 1992 and 1994 the bishop was absent from patriarchal anniversaries, but during the Christmas celebration in January 1999 he was welcomed by Pope Shenouda in the Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Cairo and received from the church goers a standing ovation.

Pope Shenouda's rule of the church was restored with his return to Cairo with Coptic Christmas, January 1985. Pope Shenouda had difficulties in reconciling with former members of the papal committee. The decisions that they had taken in this interim period (1981–1985) were annulled. From this moment on Pope Shenouda made sure he was representing the church on an international level. In 1994 Pope Shenouda III became one of the presidents of the World Council of Churches (WCC).

When President Sadat placed Coptic leader Pope Shenouda under house arrest in 1981, confining him to the Monastery of St Bishoy, a papal committee of five bishops was formed to take over the duties of the pope, and one of the appointed bishops was Bishop Athanasius. The papal committee left only the spiritual authority to Pope Shenouda III, but not the rule of the church.

On July 22, 1962, the previous Metropolitan of Beni Suef (also named Athanasius) passed away. On September 9 of the same year, Pope Kyrillos VI ordained Macarius al-Suryani as the new bishop of Beni Suef and added El-Bahnasa to this bishopric, giving him the name of his predecessor. Thus, he is sometimes referred to as Athanasius II of Beni Suef.

The bishop started his own Sunday School branch in Faggala, Cairo, then became a monk and became the first reform monk to be consecrated as a diocesan bishop (Beni Suef) in 1962.

Bishop Athanasius was also a man of Muslim-Christian dialogue. He made it explicitly clear he didn't believe in a theological dialogue with Islam, but that for him dialogue meant finding ways of living together in peace. He argued that having a Christian house of worship is more important than a church tower which at times was more a symbol of pride than a symbol of Christian humility. He was willing to sacrifice the tower, or to shorten it, if this would help him to obtain a permit for the building. His attitude may have been an important factor in the tremendous increase in number of churches in his diocese: from about 60 in 1962 to about 130 in the year 2000.

In the 1960s, Bishop Athanasius founded The Daughters of Saint Mary in Beni Suef, an order of serving nuns who played a role in various social projects in the community. Bishop Athanasius actively sought dialogue with Muslims in the 1970s and 80s and alongside Bishop Samuel, represented the Coptic Orthodox Church outside of Egypt.

On September 7, 1958, he joined the Syrian Monastery, taking the monastic name of Macarius al-Suryani.

After completing high school, he studied at the American University in Cairo, earning a Licenciate in English Literature (1944) and a Bachelor of Education and Psychology (1952), while also working as an English teacher in Aswan and lecturing on the New Testament in the Coptic Theological Seminary in Cairo.

Metropolitan Athanasius (1923–2000) was the Coptic Orthodox bishop of Beni Suef and El-Bahnasa in Egypt from 1962 until his death in 2000. Like Pope Shenouda III, Bishop Athanasius had his roots in the Sunday School movement, a reform movement in the Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt.

He was born in El-Mahalla al-Kubra on May 2, 1923, with the name Abdelmasih Bishara. His family was known by the name qassis (meaning "priest") because of the large number of Coptic clergy it had produced over at least six generations. Most famously, Bishara's uncle was Pope Macarius III who had served as the 114th Patriarch of the Coptic Church from 1944–1945.