I was dismayed by Fr Eoin de Bháldraithe’s letter (28 February), not simply because he appears to justify the appalling murder of 21 of our fellow Christians, by inviting us to remember “that the Copts took the side of the Crusaders ... and [this] accounts for much of the hostility towards Christians in Egypt”. What really disturbed me was that he bases his attempt to explicate and/or understand the murderers’ loathsome action on a complete fabrication. The truth is that the Copts did not support the Crusades.Alastair Llewellyn-Smith, London W14l Eoin de Bháldraithe is uninformed. Far from colluding with the Frankish Crusaders, the Copts opposed them, not only on the theological grounds, which dominated the Council of Chalcedon, but because the Crusad