Who Are the Copts of Egypt?

The New Year's Day bombing of a Coptic church in Alexandria, Egypt, has brought this ancient Christian faith into the news. 23 people were killed in this attack on Christians while practicing their religion in a Muslim nation. The attack has echoes of a Jan. 7, 2010, attack on Copts leaving a Christmas Mass in Naj Hammadi, Egypt, that killed seven.

The Copts are one of the oldest Christian sects in the world. As Christianity spread throughout the Middle East and the Roman Empire in the first centuries after Christ, the port city of Alexandria was a natural focal point for travelers. The Copts believe that Saint Mark, the Gospel author, founded the first Christian church in Alexandria and their religious beliefs date from that founding.

The Coptic Church of Egypt was one of the original Christian Patriarchies. As the Roman Empire crumbled and the Church faced threats from within and without, the Copts came to share beliefs with other Patriarchies in the East, including that which would become the Greek Orthodox faith. The Copts often refer to their Patriarch as the "Pope of Alexandria."

The current Patriarch of Alexandria, the Coptic Pope, is Shenouda III. In the wake of the bombing, he has been seen on national television pleading with his followers for calm. There have been some protests and rioting by Copts.

Egypt has a secular government but requires that religion be one of the items displayed on the identity cards of citizens. The State Department terms the Egyptian government's efforts to respect religious freedom as "poor." Their 2010 report details many restrictions on Copts, and a long list of attack on Copts and Coptic institutions with little redress in the Egyptian justice system.

The conquest of the region by Islam placed the Copts in a difficult position. Alternately persecuted or tolerated by the various Muslim rulers of Egypt, these Christians continued to practice their faith as well as they could. The original dialects of the region were used in church services well into the 1500s, before Arabic became common.

After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the Coptic Church was able to practice its faith more freely. Churches in Egypt were built and renovated. Emigrants to other nations spread the faith abroad. The CIA estimates that 9 percent of Egypt's population are Coptic, making their numbers around 7.2 million people out of an estimated 2010 population of 80.5 million Egyptians. There are upwards of an additional 2 million believers world wide.

As with the other Orthodox churches, there are a small number of Copts who are in union with the Roman Catholic Church. The Coptic Rite Catholics number about 200,000.