The Coptic Orthodox Church, also known as the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria, is an Oriental Orthodox Christian church based in Egypt, servicing Africa and the Middle East. The head of the church and the See of Alexandria is the Pope of Alexandria on the Holy Apostolic See of Saint Mark, who also carries the title of Father of fathers, Shepherd of Shepherds, Ecumenical Judge and the thirteenth among the Apostles. The See of Alexandria is titular, and today, the Coptic Pope presides from Saint Mark's Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in the Abbassia District in Cairo. The church follows the Coptic Rite for its liturgy, prayer and devotional patrimony. With approximately 25 million members worldwide, it is the country's largest Christian denomination.
The culture of Egypt has thousands of years of recorded history. Ancient Egypt was among the earliest civilizations in the world. For millennia, Egypt developed strikingly unique, complex and stable cultures that influenced other cultures of Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
Copts are a Christian ethnoreligious group indigenous to North Africa who have primarily inhabited the area of modern Egypt and Sudan since antiquity. Most ethnic Copts are Coptic Orthodox Christians. They are the largest Christian denomination in Egypt and the Middle East, as well as in Sudan and Libya. Copts have historically spoken the Coptic language, a direct descendant of the Demotic Egyptian that was spoken in late antiquity.
The Muslim conquest of Egypt, led by the army of 'Amr ibn al-'As, took place between 639 and 646 AD and was overseen by the Rashidun Caliphate. It ended the seven centuries long period of Roman reign over Egypt that began in 30 BC. Byzantine rule in the country had been shaken, as Egypt had been conquered and occupied for a decade by the Sassanid Iran in 618–629, before being recovered by the Byzantine emperor Heraclius. The caliphate took advantage of Byzantines' exhaustion and captured Egypt ten years after its reconquest by Heraclius.
Religion in Egypt controls many aspects of social life and is endorsed by law. The state religion of Egypt is Islam. Although estimates vary greatly in the absence of official statistics. Since the 2006 census religion has been excluded, and thus available statistics are estimates made by religious and non-governmental agencies. The country is majority Sunni Muslim, with the next largest religious group being Coptic Orthodox Christians. The exact numbers are subject to controversy, with Christians alleging that they have been systemically under-counted in existing censuses.
Coptic history is the part of the history of Egypt that begins with the introduction of Christianity in Egypt in the 1st century AD during the Roman period, and covers the history of the Copts to the present day. Many of the historic items related to Coptic Christianity are on display in many museums around the world and a large number is in the Coptic Museum in Coptic Cairo.
Forces of the Rashidun Caliphate seized the major Mediterranean port of Alexandria away from the Eastern Roman Empire in the middle of the 7th century AD. Alexandria had been the capital of the Byzantine province of Egypt. This ended Eastern Roman maritime control and economic dominance of the Eastern Mediterranean and thus continued to shift geopolitical power further in favor of the Rashidun Caliphate.
The Monastery of Saint Fana is a Coptic Orthodox monastery. It is named after Saint Fana, also known as Bane, Coptic Christian hermit. The monastery is sometimes called the Monastery of Abu Fanah and is also known as the Monastery of the Cross, due to the presence of many beautifully decorated crosses inside its church.
Arab-West Report is an independent electronic magazine founded by Cornelis Hulsman and Sawsan Gabra Ayoub Khalil in 1997, originally titled the Religious News Service from the Arab World. The name was changed to Arab-West Report on 1 January 2003, reflecting the magazine's broadened scope of reporting.
The persecution of Copts and the discrimination against Coptic Orthodox Christians are historic and widespread issues in Egypt. They are also prominent examples of the poor status of Christians in the Middle East despite the fact that the religion is native to both the country and the region. Copts are the Christ followers in Egypt, usually Oriental Orthodox, who currently make up 15% of the population of Egypt—the largest religious minority of that country. Copts have cited instances of persecution throughout their history and Human Rights Watch has noted "growing religious intolerance" and sectarian violence against Coptic Christians in recent years, as well as a failure by the Egyptian government to effectively investigate properly and prosecute those responsible. Since 2011 hundreds of Egyptian Copts have been killed in sectarian clashes, and many homes, churches and businesses have been destroyed. In just one province (Minya), 77 cases of sectarian attacks on Copts between 2011 and 2016 have been documented by the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. The abduction and disappearance of Coptic Christian women and girls also remains a serious ongoing problem.
Jacky Trevane is the pseudonym of Jennifer Anne, a British woman who ran away from her Egyptian husband in 1992. With the help of ghostwriter Clifford Thurlow she published the book Fatwa: Living with a Death Threat, describing her version of her life with her Egyptian Muslim husband Maged. Jacky was twenty-three when she arrived in Egypt for a holiday with her boyfriend, Dave. Separated from Dave in a bustling street, she fell and twisted her ankle, only to be swept up by a young handsome, chivalrous Egyptian. It was, she says in her book, love at first sight. She married him, converted to Islam and lived with him in a poor suburb of Cairo. The couple bore two daughters. Their marriage, however, turned sour and Jennifer decided to return to England. She says a fatwa was issued against her and is thus "living in the shadow of a death threat." The Egyptian publication Al-Fajr spoke with Jennifer's husband, providing a different story and denying many of the claims Jennifer made. After many women read Fatwa they contacted Jacky Trevane and told her their own stories which resulted in a book, Invisible Women: Living in Secrecy to Survive, published in 2005. In this book she shares eight of the stories told to her by different women.
The Center for Arab-West Understanding (CAWU) developed from the ideals of the Egyptian electronic magazine Arab-West Report. The request for Egyptian NGO status was filed in 2004 and obtained in January 2008. The Center is based in Cairo, Egypt.
The Electronic Network for Arab-West Understanding (ENAWU) is a specialized information network that links together a network of think-tanks and information repositories in the West and the Arab world.
Otto Friedrich August Meinardus was a German Coptologist and pastor who wrote numerous books and articles about Coptic Christianity in Egypt.
Cornelis Hulsman is a Dutch sociologist who has lived for years in Egypt since 1994. He is currently the editor in chief of the Arab-West Report, which is a report that includes a weekly digest of various Egyptian press outlets. Hulsman is further an expert on Egyptian printed media, The Coptic Orthodox Holy Family's tradition, interfaith relations in Egyptian society, and inter-cultural understanding in the Arab world. Hulsman has been a correspondent for several Dutch media outlets in Egypt, and has been the Secretary-General of the Cairo Foreign Press Association since 2003.
The 2011 Alexandria bombing was an attack on Coptic Christians in Alexandria, Egypt, on Saturday, 1 January 2011. 23 people died and another 97 were injured as a result of the attack, which occurred as Christian worshipers were leaving a New Year service. The attack was the deadliest act of violence against Egypt's Coptic Christians in a decade, since the Kosheh massacre in 2000 left 20 Copts dead. The target of the bombing was the Saints Church, a Coptic church located across the street from the Masjid Sharq El-Madina mosque.
Bashmurianrevolts were a series of revolts by the Egyptians in the Bashmur region in the north of the Nile Delta against the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates in the eighth and ninth centuries. Exactly how many revolts there were cannot be determined, but the major military conflicts took place in 749, 767 and 831–832.
Sawsan is a given name. Notable people with the name include:
Copto-Arabic literature is the literature of the Copts written in Arabic. It is distinct from Coptic literature, which is literature written in the Coptic language.
