The Coptic Church

Descendants of the Pharaohs

Copts are Egyptians

The Greeks once named Egypt after the great temple of King Ptah in ancient Egypt E-Ka-Ptah (E = house Ka= soul of the god Ptah)

The words "Copts, Coptic, ..." as well as the words "Egypt, Egyptians, ..." have the same origin, which is the ancient Egyptian word for Egypt: E-KA-Ptah. The word means "the house of the spirit of Ptah", therefore, the word Copt and Egyptian are linguistically one and the same word.

Today, Copts is a term for the Christians of Egypt.

Our founder

Saint Mark

St. Mark the Evangelist brought Christianity to the Nile in the 1st century and founded the Alexandrian Church in Alexandria.

He is therefore considered the founder and first pope of the Coptic Church

Egyptians quickly accepted the Christian faith and the country was one of the first to be almost completely christianized.

According to Coptic tradition, Mark died a martyr's death in 68 AD.

We are proud of this

The Holy Family in Egypt

Egypt is the only country apart from Israel that Jesus Christ himself visited and thus blessed:

The pride of the Copts

Egypt in the Bible

The monastery of Deir el-Muharraq (“the burnt monastery”) or the Virgin Mary monastery in Assiut, Upper Egypt is located in the middle of Egypt - just as the prophet Isaiah predicted.

The pride of the Copts

Egyptian desert fathers founded monasticism

St. Anthony the Great (father of the monks) founded monasticism in Egypt in the 4th century, from where it spread worldwide (3rd/4th century).

St. Pachomius (3rd/4th century) is the founder of koinobitism (monks living together under one roof)

St. Makarios the Egyptian (4th century)

Coptic monasteries

Today there are over 80 monasteries in Egypt

From the very beginning

The church of the martyrs

Persecution of Christians from the beginning

The pagan Roman persecution from 62 AD.
since 641 AD by the Islamic conquerors (under Amr Ibn Aas).
Islam was introduced to Egypt.
The Coptic language was banned