Coptic Australians

[citation needed] Currently, the Coptic Orthodox Church has as many 100,000 members in Australia (in Sydney alone it is estimated that there are 70,000 Copts, with numbers in Melbourne in the tens of thousands).

Many Christian Egyptians left Egypt in response to the pan-Arabist and Islamist policies of president Gamal Abdel Nasser's leadership.

He performed his first Coptic wedding on Australia Day in 1969 in a Salvation Army Hall in Redfern, in Sydney's inner south.

He regularly travelled to Melbourne to conduct services, weddings and bible study for the local Coptic community.

Already established Copts would wait at Station Pier Wharf, greeting new arrivals from Egypt and supporting them through accommodation and employment.

[5] The growing congregation rented a hall attached to the Syrian Maronite Church in Victoria Parade, East Melbourne.

Adelaide's Copts were served by visiting priests until the permanent establishment of St Mary and Anba Bishoy Church.

In 1999, Bishop Suriel moved the diocesan headquarters to Donvale, in Melbourne's northeast, where the complex boasts a library.

St Mary Coptic Orthodox College was opened in 1991 by Pope Shenouda III in Clifton Hill.

[13] A higher proportion of New South Wales Coptic Orthodox population work white-collar jobs such as managers or professionals.

Hence a doublet of قبطي (ʔibṭi) and in fact the more native form, but apparently adopted by the Arabs in a mocking manner and is still used today by racists in Egypt.