His full title is "His Most Divine Beatitude the Pope and Patriarch of the Great City of Alexandria, Libya, Pentapolis, Ethiopia, all the land of Egypt, and all Africa, Father of Fathers, Shepherd of Shepherds, Prelate of Prelates, thirteenth of the Apostles, and Judge of the Œcumene".

In the schism that was created by the political and Christological controversies at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, the Church of Alexandria split in two.

These Greek Chalcedonian believers were loyal to the Eastern Roman Emperor and in communion with the Patriarchs in Rome, Antioch, Constantinople, and Jerusalem.

These Alexandrian Christians remained in ecclesiastical communion with the Patriarch of Constantinople, who likewise recorded their names and also the Pope of Rome in his diptychs.

The first recorded sign of schism was the Bishop of Rome's appointing a titular Latin Patriarch of Alexandria in 1310.

Many Greeks also settled in Alexandria from the 1840s and Orthodoxy began to flourish there again, and schools and printing presses were established.

As happened in other places, Orthodox immigrants would establish an ethnic "community", which would try to provide a church, school, sporting and cultural associations.

Archbishop Makarios III of Cyprus preached an anti-colonialist sermon at the cathedral on his way home from exile, and this led to friendship between him and the leader of the anti-colonial struggle in Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta.

During his seven years as patriarch (1997–2004), he worked tirelessly to spread the Orthodox Christian faith in Arab nations and throughout Africa, raising up native clergy and encouraging the use of local languages in the liturgical life of the church.

Today, some 300,000 Eastern Orthodox Christians constitute the Patriarchate of Alexandria in Egypt, the highest number since the Roman Empire.

[10][11][12] Women had been ordained deaconesses in the Byzantine Church through the 9th century CE after which the practice fell into disuse.

[13][14] The institution of the Offikialoi has its roots in the Hierarchy of the Byzantine Empire and primarily came into the ecclesiastical world around the 9th century, beginning with the Ecumenical patriarchate in Constantinople, where the offices existed hierarchically in three pentads.