Christianity in Egypt
[6] Smaller or larger figures have also been cited, in the range of somewhere between 6% and 18% of the population,[7] with the Egyptian government estimating lower numbers and the Coptic Orthodox Church claiming 15 million Christians living in Egypt.
[30] According to tradition, the Coptic Church was founded by Mark the Evangelist,[note 2] who was one of the seventy apostles chosen by Jesus and sent out to preach the gospel.
[42] According to Eusebius,[43] Mark was succeeded by Anianus as the bishop of Alexandria in the eighth year of Nero (62/63), probably, but not definitely, due to his coming death.
The pagan historian Lucian describes early Christians as "disdaining things terrestrial, and holding these as belonging to all in common",[48] as the New Testament also states.
[50][51][52] The persecutions by Hadrian intensified during their pontificates, but subsided during that of the next two popes, Markianos and Celadion, due to the ascension of the relatively tolerant emperor Marcus Aurelius.
Since the middle of the second century, the Catechetical School has produced many Church Fathers whose writings are still read and studied today, including Origen and Clement of Alexandria, as well as Saints Pantaenus and Athenagoras.
His method was later approved by the Council of Nicea,[53] which made one of the duties of the patriarch of Alexandria to determine the dates of the Easter and to announce it to the other Christian churches.
Its monks engaged in meditation and philosophy in pursuit of spiritual knowledge (gnosis), which they believed could be attained solely by human effort without God's help.
The Church Fathers, such as Origen and Clement of Alexandria, produced anti-Gnostic writings which contributed to the fall of the movement, although it would take several centuries to completely disappear.
The Christians faced this persecution with strength and endurance, with thousands choosing to suffer torture and death over denying their faith in Christ.
In 318, only 5 years after the end of the Diocletianic Persecution, an Alexandrian priest named Arius claimed that Jesus Christ was not coeternal with God the Father, but was rather created before time.
To outline the correct Orthodox belief, they wrote the Nicene Creed, which affirms that Jesus is "true God", that he is "begotten, not made", and that he is "of one essence with the Father".
[60] Other heresies which arose later were addressed at the Council of Constantinople in 381 AD, which made additions to the Nicene Creed, including the section about the Holy Spirit.
In the early 5th century, the Archbishop of Constantinople Nestorius rejected the concept of the Hypostatic union, instead claiming that there are two distinct hypostases in the Incarnate Christ, the one Divine and the other human.
Eutyches was condemned and exiled by a synod presided over by Flavian, Bishop of Constantinople, who also sent a full account to Leo, Pope of Rome.
[clarification needed] The bishops who were uneasy with the language of Pope Leo's Tome repudiated the council, saying that the acceptance of two physes was tantamount to Nestorianism.
This must be regarded[dubious – discuss] as the outward expression of the growing nationalist trends[citation needed] in that province against the gradual intensification of Byzantine imperialism, soon to reach its consummation during the reign of Emperor Justinian.
In 482, Emperor Zeno made an attempt to reconcile christological differences between the supporters and opponents of the Chalcedonian Definition by issuing an imperial decree known as the Henotikon, but those efforts were mainly politically motivated and ultimately proved to be unsuccessful in reaching a true and substantial reconciliation.
[67][full citation needed] The first Anglican presence in Egypt was established in 1819 by missionaries from the Church Mission Society, who endeavored to distribute copies of the Gospels in Arabic.
Some prominent Coptic thinkers from this period are Salama Moussa, Louis Awad and Secretary-General of the Wafd Party Makram Ebeid.
In 1952, Gamal Abdel Nasser led some army officers in a coup d'état against King Farouk, which overthrew the Kingdom of Egypt and established a republic.
[79] In 2007, a Cairo administrative court denied 45 citizens the right to obtain identity papers documenting their reversion to Christianity after converting to Islam.
[80] However, in February 2008 the Supreme Administrative Court overturned the decision, allowing 12 citizens who had reverted to Christianity to re-list their religion on identity cards,[81][82] but they will specify that they had adopted Islam for a brief period of time.
Although the law was eased in 2005 by handing down the authority of approval to the governors, and then in August 2017, the Parliament of Egypt removed the legal restrictions that limited the construction of new churches.
[91] However, many Copts continue to complain of being minimally represented in law enforcement, state security, and public office, and of being discriminated against in the workforce on the basis of their religion.
[94] In August 2013, following the 3 July 2013 Coup and clashes between the military and Morsi supporters, there were widespread attacks on Coptic churches and institutions in Egypt by Sunni Muslims.
The Facebook page of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party was "rife with false accusations meant to foment hatred against Copts", according to journalist Kirsten Powers.
[97][100]On February 25, 2016, an Egyptian court convicted four Coptic Christian teenagers for contempt of Islam, after they appeared in a video mocking Muslim prayers.
While security services have intervened in some cases to locate abducted Coptic girls, concerns persist regarding the practice of forced conversion.
Additionally, a fatwa issued by al-Azhar in March allowed a young child raised by Coptic parents to remain with them after being abandoned by his biological family.
