Representing original African Christianity, the Coptic Church of Egypt exists under pressure from Islamic society
The Coptic Church of Egypt represents the oldest form of Christianity in Africa: it is anchored in the Christian faith that took root among Egyptians in the Apostolic Age. Today, the Copts are a persecuted minority in Egypt, and the Coptic Church has spread across several continents.
The Coptic Church is the largest Christian church in the Middle East. Estimates of its membership range from five to twelve million. The word ‘Copt’ simply means Egyptian. Coptic Christians are descendants of the indigenous Egyptians who were the first to adopt Christianity in Africa.
The Copts themselves trace the origins of their church to the missionary work of Mark the Evangelist in the 40s and 50s AD. More conclusive historical evidence of early Egyptian Christianity is available from the second century.
The Coptic Church is one of the Oriental Orthodox churches alongside the Ethiopian and Eritrean churches, the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Syrian Church and the St Thomas Christians of India.
A minority under Egyptian pressure
The rise and rapid spread of Islam in North Africa in the 640s permanently changed the situation of the Copts. They have since lived for over 1,400 years under Muslim governance as dhimmi, a group protected by the rulers but subject to numerous restrictions on their rights. As a result of the Arabisation of Islamic society, the Copts have assumed Arabic as their language, but continued to use the Copt language in liturgy.
Today, the Copts are the largest minority in Egypt, estimated at between six and ten per cent of the country’s population. Egyptian citizens are not afforded equal rights, and like many other minorities, the Copts have been consigned to second-class status. They may engage in political activity, but have no access to certain positions of social significance, for example, in the police force, higher education or the media.
Traditionally, the Copts have lived among the rest of the population rather than being concentrated in distinct geographical areas or forming their own enclaves. In this regard, the situation has changed since the late 1970s when restrictions and terror against the Copts began to intensify. A considerable number of Copts subsequently moved to Cairo from southern Egyptian regions that had grown unsafe.
In recent years, general attitudes towards the Copts have hardened in Egypt. Since the 2011 Egyptian revolution, the country has seen several destructive church bombings, attacks against Copt-owned businesses and acts of violence against priests and individual Coptic Christians. The current administration has shown no willingness to prevent terror against the Copts, which the police and other authorities have for their part enabled.
Legislation places many obstacles in the way of the activities of the Coptic Church, including the construction of new church buildings. A new cathedral – the largest church building in the Middle East – was nevertheless completed near Cairo in 2019. As a significant mark of respect for the Coptic community, the sitting President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi attended the inauguration ceremony. However, such individual symbolic gestures cannot remedy the widespread social discrimination and pressure the Copts face.
Upholding the doctrinal and monastic tradition of the early church
The historical centre of the Coptic Church was Alexandria, a major hub of learning, philosophy and theology in the ancient world and the early church. The Coptic Church highly respects such early theologians of the School of Alexandria as Didymus the Blind (d. 398), Cyril of Alexandria (d. 444) and Dioscorus the Great (d. 454), and continues to see them as authoritative figures.
The Christology of the Coptic Church highlights the unity of Christ’s human–divine nature
The statement on the nature of Christ by the Council of Chalcedon, convened in 451, was dismissed by a significant portion of the church in the eastern and southern regions of the Roman Empire. The dispute led to a split and ultimately in the mid-400s to the permanent division of the Eastern Church into the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental churches.
The Coptic Church does not represent the same Greco-Roman Christology as historical churches in Europe and elsewhere, such as the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran and Anglican churches. The Christology of the Coptic Church highlights the unity of Christ’s human–divine nature. When interpreted in this light, the Chalcedonian declaration of Christ’s dyophysitic nature as both truly God and truly man can be seen as an excessive distinction between Christ’s divinity and humanity.
The doctrinal division has proven unreconcilable. In the period of modern ecumenism, the Coptic Church has held doctrinal discussions with representatives of, among others, the Anglican and particularly the Eastern Orthodox family of churches. Historically, the Oriental Orthodox churches are of the same ecclesiastical origin as the Eastern Orthodox family of churches, which includes the Orthodox Church of Finland and the Balkan and Eastern European Orthodox churches. The above discussions have demonstrated that doctrinal interpretations based on fifth-century disputes do not prevent the parties from acknowledging one another as representatives of the right doctrine. However, church traditions have evolved in different directions over more than 1,500 years, leading to a lasting sense of separation between the families of churches. Despite their rapprochement, the Coptic Church and its Eastern Orthodox interlocutors have been unable to overcome the obstacles to their unity.
It has turned out that, instead of actual doctrinal differences, the most difficult issue involves the way Oriental and Eastern Orthodox churches have each condemned as heretics persons revered by the other. This means the traditions of each family of churches rely on authorities the other family considers heretical.
In Egypt, the relationship between the Copts and other Christians is strained by proselytism, or attempts to convert, following from the missionary work initiated by American Protestants in the 19th century. Protestants in Egypt may not appreciate, or even consider as Christian, the Copt tradition whose central manifestations include an emphasis on liturgy, the veneration of icons and saints, fasting and the hierarchy of bishops.
Among the special features of the Coptic Church is loyalty to the Christian monastic tradition established in the Egyptian wilderness in the third and fourth centuries, and respect for hermitry. Another reason for the enduring significance of monasteries for the practical operations of the Coptic Church is that bishops are chosen from among the monks. The 1950s saw the beginning of a revival of monastic life in the Coptic Church. At present, Egypt has some 30 monasteries and half a dozen convents, and new monasteries and convents have been established in Germany, the United States and Canada. The number of monks is estimated at 1,600; nuns are fewer in number, but detailed estimates are scarce.
Challenges and opportunities of ecclesiastical life in the diaspora
In the 1950s, rising unemployment, economic difficulties and Islamic terrorism in Egypt triggered the emigration of Copts, thus creating diaspora communities in Europe, the United States, Canada and Australia. Such communities have later been established in, for example, South America and Japan as well. The total number of Copts living in diaspora is currently about three million. They actively follow the situation in Egypt and strive to influence it from their new home countries through political activity and civil activism.
For the Coptic Church, by tradition geographically restricted to Egypt, the diaspora has proved both a major challenge and a new opportunity. The church has demonstrated its willingness and ability to organise parish activities for the diaspora communities. This is true in Finland too, where a small Coptic community arranges church services and other activities in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. The church leader, Pope Tawadros II of Alexandria, visited Helsinki in 2014 to meet the Copts living in Finland.
The diaspora activities of the Coptic Church have strengthened its links with ecumenical organisations, such as the World Council of Churches. This has coincided with a rapprochement with other churches. The Coptic diaspora has enabled new kinds of interaction, particularly with the Eastern Orthodox Church.
The Copts living in diaspora have sought to preserve their religious identity and cultural traditions. At the same time, the significance of national identity for religious identity has been reassessed. Is the Coptic Church operating outside its historical region meant exclusively for the Copts or also for others living in the church’s new areas? Whereas traditionalists emphasise the centrality of Coptic identity, modernists with a more missionary mindset believe that the diaspora requires the Coptic Church to expand its cultural and national thinking.
Kirjoittaja
Pekka Metso is Professor of Practical Theology at the University of Eastern Finland. He is an expert on Orthodox Christianity, whose recent research has focused on Oriental Orthodox communities in Finland, religious upbringing and the impact of national identity on church reform efforts.
Further reading:
Shemunkasho, Aho (2018). Oriental Orthodox. In Kenneth Ross, Mariz Tadros & Todd McCaffrey, Christianity in North Africa and West Asia. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 247–258.
Tadros, Mariz (2013). Copts at the Crossroads. The Challenges of Building Inclusive Democracy in Egypt. Cairo – New York: The American University in Cairo Press.
Tadros, Samuel (2018). Egypt. In Kenneth Ross, Mariz Tadros & Todd McCaffrey, Christianity in North Africa and West Asia. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 68–79.
Minority Rights Group (2017). Copts in Egypt. https://minorityrights.org/communities/copts/ (accessed 26 August 2024)