Prior to the “Great” East/West Schism of A.D. 1054, the Coptics were separated from the rest by the Council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451. The council met to discuss the Incarnation of Christ and declared that Christ was "one hypostasis in two natures" (i.e., one person who shares two distinct natures). This became standard orthodoxy for Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant churches from then on.
The tradition says that when John Mark arrived on a missionary journey to Egypt, the Coptic form of religion of that day was god-centered worship, but focused upon the pyramids. However, John Mark and the Gospel message were well received by the Coptic people as they also believed in “eternal life.” The Coptic people, under Roman rule and societal influence, consisted of Greeks, Jews, and Egyptians; therefore, Christianity had to take into account the different cultural, language, and religious backgrounds when evangelizing and in establishing its church.
Today, there is a small population of Coptic Christians remaining in Alexandria, but most are located elsewhere. Estimates of the current population of the Coptic Church range from 10 million to 60 million members worldwide. Theologically, Coptic Christianity is very similar to Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. They profess to be genuine followers of Jesus Christ and a part of His worldwide Church. But, as with Catholicism, they tend to emphasize meritorious works in salvation along with liturgical ritual rather than salvation through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
The Coptic Orthodox Church split away from the broader Christian community in 451 A.D. The Coptic Church diverged from other Christians during the 5th century in part due to differing beliefs about the nature of Christ. Coptic Christians believe that Christ had two natures ― one human and one divine ― united as one “without mingling, without confusion, and without alteration.” Catholics and other Christian denominations believe in the incarnation of Jesus, which similarly holds that Christ was both fully human and fully divine. But at the time of the split, Coptic Christians were accused of believing in monophysitism ― the belief that Christ had only one, divine nature.
Coptic Christians trace their founding to the apostle St. Mark. Tradition holds that Mark brought Christianity to Egypt and founded the Coptic church during the first century. It is one of the oldest Christian churches in the Middle East and was the first founded in Africa.
They comprise the largest Christian community in the Middle East. In Egypt, Coptic Christians make up the majority of the country’s roughly 9 million Christians. There are some 12 million members worldwide, according to the World Council of Churches.
Coptic theology and practice have much in common with the Catholic Church ― but diverge in several major areas. Like Catholics, Coptic Christians believe in the Ten Commandments, and they practice the sacraments of baptism, confession and confirmation. But unlike Roman Catholics, they don’t believe in the infallibility of the pope or in purgatory, notes the Associated Press. And Coptic priests can marry.
Copts have their own pope. The head of the Coptic Church is the Pope of Alexandria, a position that is now based in Cairo. The current leader is Pope Tawadros II, a trained pharmacist who studied theology and was ordained a priest and later a bishop. His papacy began in 2012.
The Coptic calendar is slightly different from that of the rest of the Christian world. Copts follow the Julian calendar, and their Christmas falls on January 7. Coptic Christians practice a 40-day period of fasting from red meat, poultry and dairy products leading up to their Christmas. They also observe a 55-day fast preceding Easter.
Coptic Christians have experienced persecution for centuries. Since the time of their split from the rest of the Christian community up through modern times, Coptic Christians have been the targets of violence and aggression. They experienced persecution through shifting power structures in the Middle East, particularly under the Byzantine Empire and after the Arab conquest in the seventh century. There were long periods of peace, too, but these were invariably followed by eras of discrimination and oppression.
Coptic Christians continue to face persecution. Conditions for Copts in Egypt have worsened in recent decades following a series of Middle East wars. Millions of Copts have left Egypt due to rising religious tensions and currently live as expatriates, according to AP. Copts face restrictions on inter-religious marriage and on converting Muslims to Christianity, and activists hold that discrimination also keeps them from attaining positions of high office.
Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, Oriental Orthodox church and principal Christian church in predominantly Muslim Egypt. The people of Egypt before the Arab conquest in the 7th century identified themselves and their language in Greek as Aigyptios (Arabic qibṭ, Westernized as Copt). When Egyptian Muslims later ceased to call themselves Aigyptioi, the term became the distinctive name of the Christian minority. In the 19th and 20th centuries they began to call themselves Coptic Orthodox in order to distinguish themselves both from Copts who had converted to Roman Catholicism (see also Coptic Catholic Church) and from Eastern Orthodox, who are mostly Greek (see also Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria).
In the 4th and 5th centuries a theological conflict arose between the Copts and the Greek-speaking Romans, or Melchites, in Egypt. The Council of Chalcedon (451) rejected monophysite doctrine—the belief that Jesus Christ had only a divine, not a human, nature—and affirmed both his divinity and his humanity. The Melchites recognized the outcome of Chalcedon. The Coptic church, however, became one of the several Eastern churches that rejected the Christological language about the two natures of Christ agreed upon at Chalcedon. Yet while the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches denounced these Eastern churches as monophysite heretics, the Coptic church and other pre-Chalcedonian or (since the 20th century) Oriental Orthodox churches adopted a theological position called miaphysitism. Confessing the statement by St. Cyril of Alexandria (c. 375–444) proclaiming the “one incarnate nature of the Word” of God, miaphysites declared that both Christ’s humanity and divinity were equally present through the Incarnation in one single nature (hence the Greek prefix mia, “same”) as the Word made flesh. Rather than denying Christ’s humanity, as they were accused of doing, the Coptic and other miaphysite churches gave both his humanity and his divinity equal presence in the person of Christ.
After the Arab conquest of Egypt in the 7th century, the Copts ceased speaking Greek, and the language barrier added to the controversy. Various attempts at compromise by the Byzantine emperors came to naught. Later, the Arab caliphs, although they tended to favour those who adopted Islam, did not interfere much in the church’s internal affairs. The jizya, the tax levied upon non-Muslims living in an Islamic state, was abolished in the 18th century.
Arabic is now used in the services of the Coptic Orthodox Church for the lessons from the Bible and for many of the variable hymns; only certain short refrains that churchgoing people all understand are not in Arabic. The service books, using the liturgies attributed to St. Mark, St. Cyril of Alexandria, and St. Gregory of Nazianzus, are written in Coptic (the Bohairic dialect of Alexandria), with the Arabic text in parallel columns.
The Coptic Orthodox Church developed a democratic system of government after the 1890s. The patriarch and the 12 diocesan bishops, with the assistance of community councils in which the laity is well represented, regulate the finances of the churches and schools and the administration of the rules relating to marriage, inheritance, and other matters of personal status. When the patriarch dies, an electoral college, predominantly of laymen, selects three duly qualified monks at least 50 years of age as candidates for the office of patriarch. Among these three, the final choice is made by lot after prayer.
The highest-ranking bishop is the patriarch of Alexandria, who resides in Cairo; he is called the pope and claims apostolic authority for his office from St. Mark. The church has its own primary and secondary schools in many places in Egypt, as well as a strong Sunday-school movement for the religious education of children unable to go to Coptic schools. There is an Institute of Coptic Studies in Cairo, a theological college connected with the institute, and a Coptic museum; the teaching of the Coptic Orthodox Church has even become the basis of the syllabus used in the religious instruction of Christian children in government schools.
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