FOUNDED: 48 C.E.
RELIGION AS A PERCENTAGE OF WORLD POPULATION: 0.12

Overview

The Coptic Orthodox Church adheres to the original apostolic traditions. It follows the decisions of the Councils of Nicea (325), Constantinople (381), and Ephesus (431) and uses the original liturgies written by Saints Mark, Basil of Alexandria, and Gregory of Nazianzus.

During the first Christian centuries, when Egypt was part of the Roman Empire, Copts contributed to the development of the monastic life and Christian theology as formulated by the ecumenical councils. After Arab rule replaced the Byzantine Empire in Egypt in 641–42, Christianity was slowly overshadowed by Islam through intermarriage and conversion. The majority of the contemporary Egyptian Muslim population is of Coptic origin. In spite of its minority position, the Coptic Church was able to survive, and beginning in the 1950s Coptic Christianity experienced a religious revival. Concurrent with this revival a movement of Coptic immigration to...