Egyptian Christianity
A History of the Christian Church in Egypt
Egypt
Theologians
Clement of Alexandria
Origen
Monasticism
Arian Controversy
Monophysite Controversy
Egypt Under Islam
Christianity entered Africa through Egypt, probably by the preaching of St Mark the gospel-writer, although the apostle Apollos came from Alexandria, Egypt. The first Egyptian converts came from the large Jewish community in Alexandria, but the new faith soon spread throughout Egyptian society, in part because traditional Egyptian religion had been based on the divinity and authority of the Pharoah, who had been overthrown by the Romans. Since the religious base of Egyptian society had been undermined by the Roman occupation, Christianity became a key factor enabling Egyptian culture to survive the Roman era.
Theologians
Egyptian Christianity also confronted Rome, particularly Roman philosophy and religion. Alexandria, one of the three dominant churches in the Empire, along with Rome itself and Antioch, became the center of creative Christian theology, turning out a succession of able theologians and defenders of the Christian faith. Many of the Alexandrian theologians were trained in the Didascalia, or Catechal School at Athens, where a number of them also taught.
Monasticism
With the legalization of Christianity in the Roman Empire by Constantine in AD 313, persecution of Egyptian Christians ended. As it became easy and even popular to be a Christian, many of the more rigorous Christians objected to the laxity of their fellow-believers. They longed for the time when their fellowship had been close knit and cemented by persecution. Some of these believers responded by developing an ascetic understanding of the Christian life, retreating into the desert, never very far away in Egypt to become hermits, to live a life of self-denial. In the fourth and fifth centuries, Egypt came to be regarded as the home of Christian monasticism, and the hermits occupied an important and respected place in Egyptian Christianity.
Arian Controversy
Constantine became directly involved in Alexandrian affairs when he called the Council of Nicea in 325 to settle a dispute between the bishop of Alexandria and a theologian by the name of Arius. The Alexandrians persuaded Constantine and the Council that Arianism was a dangerous heresy, and led the Council to affirm what has become the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity.
Monophysite Controversy
More than a century later, the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon, condemned Alexandrian theology, declaring their Monophysite (my page) understanding of the nature of Jesus Christ to be heretical. This resulted in the separation of the Coptic Church from the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches, a separation that has persisted to the present, though discussions which began in 1966 show signs of healing the breach between the Coptic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches.
The Coptic Church under Islam
Coptic Christianity flourished in Egypt until the seventh century, when Islam rose in Saudi Arabia, then swept across North Africa, carrying all before it. Islam came to dominate Egyptian society, in part because the Egyptians welcomed the Arabs as a source of liberation from Byzantine domination, which had become increasingly onerous since the Council of Chalcedon. At first the Muslim overlords tolerated the Coptic Christians, because they, like the Jews, were "People of the Book," but gradually they began to tax the Christians more and more heavily, interspersing their taxation policy with active persecution. In the 8th century marks were burned on the hands of Christians, in order to identify and control them, in the 9th century Christian were forced to wear five pound crosses around their necks, as a means of identification. All new churches were burned, Christian education forbidden and public worship restricted. The next millennium saw intermitten persecutions, with occational retaliatory rioting, but a general stabilization of the Coptic Church, which unlike the Western North African Church, maintained its identity through the centuries and has remained a viable and stable church into the 21st century
Next
Bibliography:
John McManners Oxford Illustrated History of Chrisianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990)
Pearson, The Roots of Egyptian Christianity.
*K.S. Latourette, A History of the Expansion of Christianity 7 vols 1947
*H. Van Kampenhausen, The Fathers of the Greek Church
*H. Chadwick, The Early Church
*WHC Frend, The Rise of Christianity
*A Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity 1908
*JND Kelly Early Christian Doctrines
*WHC Frend The Rise of the Monophysite Movement Cantab 1972
*AS Atiya, A History of Eastern Christianity London 1968
*ER Hardy, Christian Egypt: Church and People, Christianity and Nationalism in the Patriarchate of Alexandria, New York: Oxford University Press, 1952
Good Websites: For a parallel and somewhat more detailed account of Egyptian Christianity from the perspective of Egyptian Coptic Christianity see http://www.interoz.com/egypt/chiste0.htm
Encyclopedia Brittanica, sv Eastern Christianity, Independent Churches of