The Coptic Orthodox church staged a ceremony rich in ritual on Sunday, Nov 18, to install its pope, Tawadros II, who Christians hope will guide them through the new, Islamist-led Egypt, according to Reuters.

The 60-year-old pope was picked on November 4 and the ceremony on Sunday filled with incense, elaborate robes and chanting marked his formal ascendance as the 118th leader of the church.

Coptic Christians, whose church predates the arrival of Islam in Egypt, make up a tenth of Egypt's 83 million people.

Many fear their community, the biggest Christian group in the Middle East which has long complained of discrimination, will be squeezed to the sidelines of society under Islamists now ruling the Muslim-majority nation.

President Mohamed Mursi, propelled to power by the Muslim Brotherhood, did not attend the ceremony in the cathedral in Cairo's Abbasiya district to the dismay of some Christians who said it undermined his claim to be a leader for all Egyptians.

But he sent his prime minister, Hisham Kandil. Other officials and dignitaries also attended.