Centuries of a steady continuous rate of conversions of the local indigenous Egyptian population has resulted in modern Egypt's Muslim majority, although the indigenous Christian Church of Egypt has retained a sizeable minority throughout its history, up until today.
Some New Zealand citizens and residents declared membership of the Coptic Orthodox Church.
Emigration from Egypt was significant in the late 1940s and 1950s, disproportionately so for non-Muslim religious minorities escaping the growing Arab nationalist movement in Egypt which saw the overthrow of the Egyptian monarchy and the subsequent Suez Crisis.
[2] In total numbers, Egyptian Christians were the largest contingent of emigrants to leave Egypt for other countries, including to New Zealand.
The number of Jews in Egypt numbered around 75,000 in 1948, and following the establishment of the State of Israel that same year, almost the entire population left in the subsequent years during the Jewish exodus from Arab lands, settling largely in Israel, United States, Europe, Latin America, as well as Australia and New Zealand.