The Coptic Orthodox Church, also known as the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria, is an Oriental Orthodox Christian church based in Egypt. The head of the Coptic Orthodox church and of 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 13th among the Apostles, also referred to as the Patriarch of the See of Saint Mark. The current pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church is Pope Tawadros II. (Coptic: Ⲑⲉⲟ́ⲇⲛⲣⲟⲥ II)
The See of Alexandria is titular. 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. Adherents of the Coptic Orthodox Church make up Egypt's largest and most significant minority population, and the largest population of Christians in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). They make up the largest share of the approximately 10 million Christians in Egypt.
According to Coptic tradition, the Coptic Orthodox Church was established by Saint Mark the Evangelist, a companion of the Apostles, during the middle of the 1st century (c. AD 42). Due to disputes concerning the nature of Christ, the Oriental Orthodox Churches were in schism after the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451.
After AD 639, Egypt was ruled by its Islamic conquerors from Arabia. In the 12th century, the church relocated its seat from Alexandria to Cairo. The same century also saw the Copts become a religious minority. During the 14th and 15th centuries, Nubian Christianity was supplanted by Islam. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the larger body of ethnic Egyptian Christians began to call themselves Coptic Orthodox, to distinguish themselves from the Catholic Copts and from the Eastern Orthodox, who are mostly Greek. In 1959, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church was granted autocephaly. This was extended to the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church in 1998 following the successful Eritrean War of Independence from Ethiopia.
According to tradition, the Coptic Church was founded by St. Mark the Evangelist c. AD 42; it regards itself as the subject of many prophecies in the Old Testament.
The Coptic language is a universal language used in Coptic churches in every country. It descends from Ancient Egyptian and uses the Coptic alphabet, a script descended from the Greek alphabet with added characters derived from the Demotic script. Today, the Bohairic dialect of Coptic is used primarily for liturgical purposes. Many of the hymns in the liturgy are in Coptic and have been passed down for many centuries. The language is used to preserve Egypt's dominant language prior to the Arab conquest, after which Coptic was banned by Arab rulers and gradually supplanted by Arabic. Today, most Copts speak Arabic as their first language, the official language of Egypt. Hence, Arabic is also used in church services nowadays. The service books, though written in Coptic, have Arabic text in parallel columns.
Catechetical School of Alexandria
The Catechetical School of Alexandria is the oldest catechetical school in the world. Jerome records that the Christian School of Alexandria was founded by Mark himself.
The theological college of the catechetical school was re-established in 1893.
The school became a leading center of the allegorical method of biblical interpretation, espoused rapprochement between Greek culture and the Christian faith, and attempted to assert orthodox Christian teachings against heterodox views in an era of doctrinal flux.
Role and participation in the ecumenical councils
In the 4th century, an Alexandrian presbyter named Arius began a theological dispute about the nature of Christ that spread throughout the Christian world and is now known as Arianism. The Council of Nicea in AD 325 was convened by Emperor Constantine I after Pope Alexander I of Alexandria proposed holding a council to respond to heresies. A council under the presidency of Hosius of Cordova attempted to resolve the dispute. This eventually led to the formulation of the Symbol of Faith, also known as the Nicene Creed.
In AD 381, Pope Timothy I of Alexandria presided over the second ecumenical council known as the First Council of Constantinople, to judge Macedonius, who denied the Divinity of the Holy Spirit. This council completed the Nicene Creed with this confirmation of the divinity of the Holy Spirit:
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified who spoke by the Prophets and in One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic church. We confess one Baptism for the remission of sins and we look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the coming age, Amen
Another theological dispute in the 5th century occurred over the teachings of Nestorius, the patriarch of Constantinople who taught that God the Word was not hypostatically joined with human nature, but rather dwelt in the man Jesus. As a consequence of this, he denied the title "Mother of God" (Theotokos) to the Virgin Mary, declaring her instead to be "Mother of Christ" Christotokos.
The council confirmed the teachings of Athanasius and confirmed the title of Mary as "Mother of God". It also clearly stated that anyone who separated Christ into two hypostases was anathema, as Cyril had said that there is "One Nature for God the Word Incarnate" (Mia Physis tou Theou Logou Sesarkōmenē). The introduction to the creed is formulated as follows:
We magnify you O Mother of the True Light and we glorify you O saint and Mother of God (Theotokos) for you have borne unto us the Saviour of the world. Glory to you O our Master and King: Christ, the pride of the Apostles, the crown of the martyrs, the rejoicing of the righteous, firmness of the churches and the forgiveness of sins. We proclaim the Holy Trinity in One Godhead: we worship Him, we glorify Him, Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy, Lord bless us, Amen.
The church of Alexandria was part in communion with the rest of Christendom until the Council of Chalcedon. When, in AD 451, Emperor Marcian attempted to heal divisions in the church, the response of Pope Dioscorus–the Pope of Alexandria who was later exiled–was that the emperor should not intervene in the affairs of the church. It was at Chalcedon that the emperor, through the imperial delegates, enforced harsh disciplinary measures against Pope Dioscorus in response to his boldness. In AD 449, Pope Dioscorus headed the 2nd Council of Ephesus, called the "Robber Council" by Chalcedonian historians. It held to the Miaphysite formula which upheld the Christology of "One Incarnate Nature of God the Word" (Byzantine Greek: μία φύσις Θεοῦ Λόγου σεσαρκωμένη, romanized: mia physis Theou Logou sesarkōmenē).