[2] Historically speaking, Christianity spread to the Pentapolis in North Africa from Egypt;[3] Synesius of Cyrene (370-414), bishop of Ptolemais, received his instruction at Alexandria in both the Catechetical School and the Museion, and he had a great deal of reverence and affection for Neoplatonist Hypatia, whose classes he had attended.

Since the Council of Nicaea in 325, Cyrenaica had been recognized as an ecclesiastical province of the See of Alexandria, in accordance with the ruling of the Nicaean Fathers.

[5] In 1971 Pope Shenouda III reinstated it as part of the Eparchy of Metropolitan Bishop Pachomius, Metropolitan of the Holy Metropolis of Beheira (Thmuis & Hermopolis Parva), (Buto), Mariout (Mareotis), Marsa Matruh (Paraetonium), (Apis), Patriarchal Exarch of the Ancient Metropolis of Libya: (Livis, Marmarica, Darnis & Tripolitania) & Titular Metropolitan Archbishop of the Great and Ancient Metropolis of Pentapolis: (Cyren), (Appollonia), (Ptolemais), (Berenice) and (Arsinoe).

[6][7] In February 2014, seven Coptic Christians were dragged out of their houses in the middle of the night, then murdered on a beach, east of Benghazi.

[8] A group of Copts were kidnapped on separate occasions in December 2014 and January 2015, then murdered by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.