The alleged perpetrators and other Christians took shelter inside a Coptic church, Osman said.
CNN: Official: 5 killed as Muslims, Christians clash in Egypt
Unlike the Middle East's other dwindling Christian communities, the 1, 700-year-old Coptic church remains vibrant.
That honor goes to His Holiness Pope Tawadros II, the 118th pope of the Coptic Church of Egypt.
The German interior ministry says members of the Coptic church expressed their concerns even before the New Year's Day suicide attack.
Restrictions on the building of churches were relaxed, and lands confiscated from the Coptic church after the 1952 revolution were returned.
Previous Laureates of the UNESCO-Madanjeet Singh Prize include the Burmese pro-democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi and Pope Shenouda III of the Egyptian Coptic Church.
The women in most of these cases appear to have resorted to converting to Islam to escape unhappy marriages, since the Coptic church bans divorce.
Two Egyptians have been killed and two injured in an apparent attack on a Coptic church building near the Libyan city of Misrata, officials say.
Monks at Jerusalem's Coptic Church joined in, warning that any of Egypt's 10m or so Christians caught flouting their pope's ban on visiting the old city would be refused communion.
In 2002, monks from the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the Coptic Church of Egypt - two groups which for years have been vying for control of the church's roof - fought over the position of a chair on the roof.
Ethiopia's Orthodox Church used to be part of Egypt's Coptic Christian Church, but got its own patriarch in 1959.
BBC: New leader of The Ethiopian Orthodox Church Abune Mathias
Mr Morsi denounced the violence in a phone call to Pope Tawadros II, the head of the Coptic Christian Church.
Several liberal and secular members of the assembly had already withdrawn because of the criticism, as well as the Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Church and Al-Azhar Institution, one of the most influential Islamic entities.
CNN: Row over Egypt's new constitution reflects wider tensions
The General Bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Britain, Bishop Angaelos, said that he had discussed the threats with fellow bishops across Europe and that precautions taken after earlier attacks had been heightened.
The bombing of a major church in Alexandria in January 2011 left at least 21 people dead, and at least 25 Coptic Christians and their supporters were killed in clashes with the army in October.
CNN: Official: 5 killed as Muslims, Christians clash in Egypt
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