Coptic Orthodox Church

The Coptic Orthodox Church (; ), also known as the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria, is an Oriental Orthodox Christian church based in Egypt. The head of the church and the See of Alexandria is the pope of Alexandria on the Holy Apostolic See of Saint Mark, who also carries the title of Father of fathers, Shepherd of shepherds, Ecumenical Judge and the 13th among the Apostles. The head of the Coptic Orthodox Church is the pope, also referred to as the Patriarch of the See of Saint Mark. The current pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church is Pope Tawadros II. (Coptic: Ⲑⲉⲟ́ⲇⲛⲣⲟⲥ II) The See of Alexandria is titular. The Coptic pope presides from Saint Mark's Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in the Abbassia District in Cairo. The church follows the Coptic Rite for its liturgy, prayer and devotional patrimony. Adherents of the Coptic Orthodox Church make up Egypt's largest and most significant minority population, and the largest population of Christians in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). They make up the largest share of the approximately 10 million Christians in Egypt.

According to Coptic tradition, the Coptic Orthodox Church was established by Saint Mark the Evangelist, a companion of the Apostles, during the middle of the 1st century (). Due to disputes concerning the nature of Christ, the Oriental Orthodox Churches were in schism after the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451.

After AD 639, Egypt was ruled by its Islamic conquerors from Arabia. In the 12th century, the church relocated its seat from Alexandria to Cairo. The same century also saw the Copts become a religious minority. During the 14th and 15th centuries, Nubian Christianity was supplanted by Islam. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the larger body of ethnic Egyptian Christians began to call themselves Coptic Orthodox, to distinguish themselves from the Catholic Copts and from the Eastern Orthodox, who are mostly Greek. In 1959, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church was granted autocephaly. This was extended to the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church in 1998 following the successful Eritrean War of Independence from Ethiopia. Provided by Wikipedia