Christianity in Egypt: History, Traditions, and Modern Life
The history of Christianity in Egypt dates back to the Roman era, as Alexandria was an early centre of Christianity.
Egyptian Christian Monks, Christianity in Egypt
Is Christianity growing in Egypt?
The immense number of Christians in Egypt are Copts who are part of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria that is an Oriental Orthodox Church. In the year 2019, the Copts in Egypt were around 10% of the total population in the country, with a population of 9.5 million cited by the Wall Street Journal in 2017 and 10 million by the Associated Press in 2019.
Smaller or larger figures have also been cited, in the range of somewhere between 6% and 18% of the population, with the Egyptian government estimating lower numbers and the Coptic Orthodox Church claiming 15 million Christians living in Egypt. A lack of definite, reliable demographic data renders all estimates uncertain. Outside of Egypt, there are roughly 1 million members of the Coptic Orthodox abroad. In 2018, approximately 90% of Egyptian Christians were Coptic Orthodox.
Other than the Coptic Orthodox Church, two other Oriental Orthodox churches have members in Egypt: the Armenian Apostolic and Syriac Orthodox churches.
The Coptic Catholic Church is home to a small group of Egyptian Christians, which is around 2.5% of the total population. The Annuario Pontificio in 2007 approximated the total number of Coptic Catholics at 161,327 people distributed in nine eparchies under the jurisdiction of nine bishops and with 164 parishes. The Egyptian members of the worldwide Catholic Church also consist of the Melkites, Maronites, Syriac Catholics, Armenian Catholics, and Chaldean Catholics. The majority of the Latin Church Catholics in Egypt are foreigners.
Scattered among the various churches are many converts from Islam to Christianity. A 2015 study estimated that there were 14,000 such believers in Egypt.
History of Christianity in Egypt
1- Early history of Christianity in Egypt
According to tradition, the Coptic Church was founded by Mark the Evangelist, who was one of the seventy apostles chosen by Jesus and sent out to preach the gospel. He is mentioned in the Book of Acts as a companion of Saint Paul in Antioch and Cyprus, and is ascribed to be the author of the Gospel of Mark. According to the Coptic tradition, Mark was born in Cyrene, a city in the Pentapolis of North Africa (now Libya). This tradition adds that Mark returned to Pentapolis later in life, after being sent by Paul to Colossae and serving with him in Rome. From Pentapolis, he made his way to Alexandria.
Monastery of Saint Bishoy, Christianity in Egypt
Traditionally, sometime in AD 49 (approximately 16 years after the Ascension of Jesus) Mark went to Alexandria, and there established the Church of Alexandria after already spending 4-5 years in Egypt. All of the Coptic Orthodox, the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria and the Coptic Catholic Church are descendants of this original community. Elements of the Coptic liturgy (in this case, the Liturgy of Saint Cyril) were even dated back to Mark himself.
He became the first bishop of Alexandria, and he is honoured as the founder of Christianity in Africa. When Mark returned to Alexandria, the pagans of the city resented his efforts to turn the Alexandrians away from the worship of their traditional gods. In AD 68, they placed a rope around his neck and dragged him through the streets until he was dead.
According to Eusebius, Mark was succeeded by Anianus as the bishop of Alexandria in the eighth year of Nero, probably, but not definitely, due to his imminent death. Later Coptic tradition says that he was martyred in 68. According to Severus ibn al-Muqaffa, the rise of Christianity in Alexandria in the second half of the first century was accompanied by persecution by the Romans, so much so that after the departure of the third Pope of Alexandria Avilius in 93 AD, a new pope could not be chosen until 95 AD. This pope, Kedron, was himself martyred under the emperor Trajan.
Despite this, the bishops elected a new pope, indicating that the church had such a powerful base that no amount of persecution, not even the murder of the pope himself, could overcome it.
2- The Rise of Christianity in Egypt
Pope Primus was elected as the 5th Pope of Alexandria in 106 AD, and the Catechetical School of Alexandria arose in his days, as did the number of churches in Egypt and beyond, despite the emperor Hadrian continuing the persecution of Christians. The next two popes, Justus and Eumenes, were also Deans of the Catechetical School of Alexandria. The persecutions by Hadrian intensified during their pontificates, but subsided during that of the next two popes, Markianos and Celadion, due to the ascension of the relatively tolerant emperor Marcus Aurelius.
Christians in Egypt, Christianity in Egypt
Since the middle of the second century, the Catechetical School has produced many Church Fathers whose writings are still read and studied today, including Origen and Clement of Alexandria, as well as Saints Pantaenus and Athenagoras. Some of the most important Church Fathers in the West, such as Saints Augustine and Jerome, were influenced by the School of Alexandria too. Another milestone of the second century was the first Bible translations into Coptic from its original Koine Greek. Coptic was, along with Syriac and Latin, one of the earliest languages the New Testament was translated.
Pope Demetrius established a liturgical calendar by which fasts and feast days were determined. He was engaged in the controversy over the canonical calculation of Easter and was the first to apply the calculation method for determining the date of Easter. His method was later approved by the Council of Nicea, which made one of the duties of the patriarch of Alexandria to determine the dates of Easter and to announce it to the other Christian churches. This duty fell on this officiate because of the erudition at Alexandria he could draw on.
Pope Demetrius died in 230 after a long pontificate, and neither his pontificate nor that of his predecessor Julian (178-188) saw any violent persecution of Christians, except that the restrictions against them were not lifted, and he had warned the bishops against leaving Alexandria. Despite this, the Pope would secretly leave to ordain new priests in other cities and villages. By 300, about a quarter of the population in the eastern half of the Roman Empire was Christian.
During the second century, the Church also fought against Gnosticism, which syncretised Christianity with the beliefs that had prevailed before it. Its monks engaged in meditation and philosophy in pursuit of spiritual knowledge (gnosis), which they believed could be attained solely by human effort without God’s help. Gnostic beliefs were not well understood by historians until the discovery of their writings, such as the Nag Hammadi library, in the 20th century.
The gnostics wrote false gospels and ascribed them to Biblical figures. For example, the Gospel of Judas portrays Jesus’ betrayer Judas Iscariot as a partner in salvation and redemption. The Church Fathers, such as Origen and Clement of Alexandria, produced anti-Gnostic writings which contributed to the fall of the movement, although it would take several centuries to completely disappear.
3- Christianity in Egypt during The Era of Martyrs
The main problem suffered by the church in the second and third centuries was its persecution by the Roman Empire. From the expulsion of Jews and Christians from Rome around 50 AD to the Edict of Milan in 313 AD, the Christians suffered various persecutions, the harshest of which were the Neronian persecution and the Diocletianic Persecution. Christian history refers to the persecutions of Nero, Domitian, Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, Septimius Severus, Maximinus, Decius, Valerian, Aurelian and Diocletian as the “Ten Great Persecutions”.
The Christian doctrines clashed with the Roman doctrines on deifying and worshipping Roman emperors, and Christians declined to serve in the Roman army and they went out of work during Sabbath days to conduct religious rituals. Christians were therefore viewed by the Roman authorities as anti-state criminals and Christianity in Egypt was a subversive religion that would jeopardise the safety and security of the empire.
Therefore, they banned Christian gatherings and organised persecutions against Christians, which reached their height under Diocletian (r. 284–305). The Christians faced this persecution with strength and endurance, with thousands choosing to suffer torture and death over denying their faith in Christ. The Coptic Church began counting the years, the Era of the Martyrs, from the beginning of Diocletian’s reign, and commemorates the martyrs on Nayrouz, which is the beginning of the year in the Coptic calendar.
The situation for Christians greatly improved after Emperor Constantine’s Edict of Milan legalised Christianity in 313 AD, and Emperor Theodosius’s Edict of Thessalonica made it the state church of the Empire in 380 AD. From the 3rd century onwards, Egyptian Christianity fostered the Desert Fathers and thus originated a major and influential tradition of ascetic monasticism in the Christian Church overall.
4- Christianity in Egypt during The Byzantine Empire
Ultimately, the struggle between the Arian and the Orthodox Church would go on after the council of Nicaea and it would be so intense that the 45-year-long life of Athanasius would see him exiled 5 times by four different Roman emperors and 17 years of that time in exile.
5- Christianity in Egypt Under Muslim Rule
Egypt, as well as some other Asian and African Byzantine territories, were conquered by Muslims in the 7th century. Under Muslim rule, the Copts were cut off from the mainstream of Christianity in Egypt and were compelled to adhere to the Pact of Umar covenant. They were assigned to Dhimmi status. Under the rule of the Bahri Mamluks, many Christians were forcefully converted and persecuted across Egypt.
Their position improved dramatically in the early 19th century under the rule of Muhammad Ali. He abolished the Jizya (a tax on non-Muslims) and allowed Copts to join the army. Pope Cyril IV reformed the church and encouraged broader Coptic participation in Egyptian affairs. Khedive Isma’il Pasha, in power 1863–79, further promoted the Copts. He appointed them judges to Egyptian courts and awarded them political rights and representation in government. They flourished in business affairs.
Muhammad Ali King, Christianity in Egypt
The first Anglican church in Egypt, called St. Mark’s, was consecrated on December 17, 1839, in Alexandria, followed by All Saints’ Church, in Cairo, consecrated on January 23, 1876. The Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Egypt, Synod of the Nile, was founded by American missionaries from the United Presbyterian Church of North America, ministering among members of the Coptic Orthodox Church in 1854. The church would later become autonomous in 1926. By 1998, the Synod had more than 300 churches, a seminary and a “large system of church related secondary schools.”
Some Copts participated in the Egyptian national movement for independence and occupied many influential positions. Two significant cultural achievements include the founding of the Coptic Museum in 1910 and the Higher Institute of Coptic Studies in 1954. Some prominent Coptic thinkers from this period are Salama Moussa, Louis Awad and Secretary-General of the Wafd Party Makram Ebeid.
6- Christianity in Egypt During Gamal Abdel Nasser Regin
In 1952, Gamal Abdel Nasser led some army officers in a coup d’état against King Farouk, which overthrew the Kingdom of Egypt and established a republic. Nasser’s mainstream policy was pan-Arab nationalism and socialism. It was the Copts who were hard hit by the policies of nationalisation by Nasser, even though they constituted 10 20 per cent of the population. In addition, Nasser’s pan-Arab policies undermined the Copts’ strong attachment to and sense of identity about their Egyptian pre-Arab, and certainly non-Arab identity, which resulted in permits to construct churches being delayed, along with Christian religious courts being closed.
Gamal Abdel Nasser
The first Council of Churches in Egypt was constituted on February 18, 2013, by the heads of the five largest denominations in Egypt namely, the Coptic Orthodox Church, the Greek Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church, the Protestant Church and the Anglican Church. In attendance were the patriarchs of the Coptic Orthodox Church, Tawadros II, the Greek Orthodox Church, Theodore II of Alexandria, and the Coptic Catholic Church, Ibrahim Isaac Sidrak.
Coptic Traditions and Festivals
Coptic Christians celebrate their own liturgical calendar, which is based on the ancient Egyptian solar year. The Coptic New Year, or Nayrouz, falls in September and commemorates the martyrs of early Christianity in Egypt.
The most significant festivities are Christmas, celebrated on January 7, and Easter which follows the Coptic Holy week, full of fasting and prayers. Copts have many fasting days throughout the year and a long Great Lent, whereby they adhere to a vegan diet in a show of devotion.
Christianity in Egypt today
The Coptic Church continues to act as a stabilising spiritual and social force. It runs schools, hospitals, and charities across the country. Coptic institutions also support the poor and promote interfaith understanding, especially during times of social tension.
The Church also serves as a cultural guardian, preserving the Coptic language (a descendant of ancient Egyptian) through its liturgy and hymns. Even though only a handful of Egyptians know it perfectly now, it is still an important connection to Egypt’s ancient civilisation.
Copti Christian Egyptians
