Denomination

Coptic Orthodoxy

Also Known As Coptic Orthodox Church · Coptic Orthodox · Coptic Church · Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria

Christianity

Origin 42 to 451 CE

The Egyptian church, the largest of the Oriental Orthodox communion and the ancient Christianity of the Nile. It traces its foundation to the preaching of Mark at Alexandria and is led by the Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of Saint Mark, at present Tawadros II, resident in Cairo. Copts confess the miaphysite Christology of the whole Oriental Orthodox family, one incarnate nature of the Word, and do not accept the Council of Chalcedon of 451. The liturgy is served in Coptic, the last stage of the Egyptian language, written in a Greek-derived alphabet, alongside Arabic; the church keeps its own calendar dated from the Era of the Martyrs, which begins in 284 with Diocletian's persecution, and a fasting discipline covering more than two hundred days of the year. Christian monasticism began in the Egyptian desert with Antony and Pachomius in the third and fourth centuries, and the Coptic monasteries are its direct continuation.

Facts

Belief

Defining Doctrinal Position

Trinitarian: one God in three persons 1Christianity

Defining Doctrinal Position

Miaphysite: one incarnate nature of the Word, divine and human united 1Christianity

Position on Marriage

Marriage is held to be monogamous, with remarriage after divorce sanctioned under specified conditions 3

Pope Shenouda III, on assuming office in 1971, rejected the church's own 1938 bylaw allowing divorce on nine named grounds and restricted permissible divorce and remarriage to adultery and change of religion alone, a restriction the church formally codified into its own regulations in 2008 and that Pope Shenouda personally defended, in a June 2010 press conference, as resting on scripture rather than administrative convenience.

Marriage Position Detail

On assuming office in 1971, Pope Shenouda III proclaimed that the church's own 1938 bylaw's nine named grounds for divorce, among them years of separation or desertion, declared death, long imprisonment, insanity, danger to a spouse including infectious disease, change of religion or sect, severe assault, taking monastic vows and adultery, would no longer be recognized, and restricted permissible divorce and remarriage to adultery and change of religion alone. The church formally amended its own regulations in 2008 to codify these same two grounds. In a June 2010 press conference, reported by the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Los Angeles, Pope Shenouda defended the restriction as resting on marriage's standing as a sacrament and a religious duty rather than merely an administrative action, after an Egyptian administrative court ruling had attempted to mandate wider grounds for remarriage. 3

Position on Sexuality

Same-sex sexual relationships are held contrary to teaching; LGBT individuals are welcomed as members but not ordained, and same-sex unions are not blessed 4

the subject's own accountA declaration by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III and the Holy Synod of the Coptic Orthodox Church, delivered in Boston and Cairo in 2003, quotes First Corinthians on homosexual practice and states the clergy strongly condemns such activities, and disapproves of same-sex unions as contrary to the divine design for marriage. It states the church disapproves of and condemns the ordination of homosexual clergy, active or not, and invites those under this sin to repent. It does not state a separate rule for the general membership or sacramental participation of a person experiencing same-sex attraction who does not seek ordination or a blessed union.

Sexuality Position Detailthe subject's own account

The 2003 declaration quotes First Corinthians 6:9 to 10, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites will inherit the Kingdom of God, and states the clergy strongly condemns such activities. It quotes Mark 10:6 to 7, for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and states the church disapproves of same-sex unions as contrary to the divine design for marriage and its purpose of procreation. It states: we disapprove of and condemn the ordination of homosexual clergy, active or not, and invites those under this sin to repent out of concern for their eternal life. 4

Practice

Liturgical Language

Coptic 1

Liturgical Language

Classical Arabic 1

Status

Status Today

Living tradition, practised today 1

Identity

Also Known As

Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria 1

Attributions

Church Family

Oriental Orthodox 2

History

Separation or Divergence

The Alexandrian see was divided thereafter between a Coptic and a Chalcedonian patriarchate 1

Separation or Divergence

The imperial church, with the other Oriental Orthodox churches, at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 1

Separation or Divergence

The name "Monophysite" applied to it by others is rejected by the church itself 1

Date of Separation

451 1

Finances

Institutional Wealth or Finances

The Coptic Orthodox Church's own Endowments Authority, the internal body managing the Church's waqf style land and real estate endowments, oversees roughly 4,667 feddans (about 4,900 acres) across 337 recorded endowments by its own published account; further endowments remain in dispute with Egypt's state Endowments Authority and are not included in this figure. 6

Basis of the Wealth Figure

The Body's Own Published Statistics 6

Financial Disclosure Regime

The Coptic Orthodox Church's Endowments Authority publishes its own summary figures for the land and property it manages, but the Church's finances overall are governed internally by the patriarch, the diocesan bishops and lay clerical community councils, and are not subject to independent Egyptian state audit; the Church has resisted oversight by Egypt's state accountability agencies. 6

Trajectory

Membership Over Time

Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II stated on 29 April 2023 that the number of Copts in Egypt is estimated at 15 million, the church's own count, well above both the national census figure and the 2008 survey estimate. 9

Membership Over Time

Egypt's 1996 national census recorded Christians, the great majority of them Coptic Orthodox, at 5.7 percent of the population, a figure Pew Research Center reports directly from Egyptian government census records. 10

Membership Over Time

The 2008 Egyptian Demographic and Health Survey, a household survey of more than 16,000 women ages 15 to 49, found about 5 percent of respondents identifying as Christian, which Pew Research Center converts to roughly 4 million people nationwide, a figure it found consistent with the census data rather than with higher church and media claims of 10 percent or more. 10

Membership Figure As Of

1996-01-01 10

Membership Figure As Of

2008-01-01 10

Membership Figure As Of

2023-04-29 9

Basis of the Membership Figure

Church-Reported Rolls 9

Basis of the Membership Figure

National Census 10

Basis of the Membership Figure

Independent Survey 10

Origins

Origin Period

42 to 451 CE 1

Origin Period

A distinct communion after Chalcedon in 451 1

Place of Origin

Alexandria and the Egyptian Nile valley 1

Founder

Attributed by the church to the evangelist Mark. 1

Organisation

Governance

Episcopal: governed by bishops 1

The Pope of Alexandria with the Holy Synod of bishops

Governance

Self-governing churches under patriarchs, deciding in synod 1

The patriarch is elected and the final choice is drawn by lot from three names

Ordination

Restricted to men 1

Ordination

Married clergy permitted 1

Parish priests are usually married men; bishops are drawn from the monasteries

Ordination

The full female ordination lineage is held lapsed; revival contested 1

The order of consecrated deaconesses was restored in 2017

Relation to the State

Privileged Never Established 5

Egypt's constitution names Islam the state religion and Islamic jurisprudence the principal source of legislation, but Article 3 separately recognises the canon law of Egyptian Christians and Jews as the basis for their own personal status legislation, and Coptic Orthodox clergy have long administered marriage, divorce and inheritance matters for their own community under that recognition, a privileged legal role that has never made the Coptic Orthodox Church Egypt's established religion.

Giving

Standing Giving Expectation

The Coptic Orthodox Metropolis (Diocese) of the Southern United States' own published FAQ on tithing states plainly, answering whether God really wants ten percent: "No, He wants 100%, all or nothing," and adds "The minimum is 10%," citing Malachi 3:10 and Matthew 23:23. No consequence to a member's standing is named anywhere for giving less than that. The same FAQ answers at length what a member unable to afford the tithe should do: offer time, talents or service in its place, speak with a priest, and, if genuinely struggling, the parish itself might help the member rather than the reverse. It closes: "There is no need or requirement to make radical adjustments; 10% is Biblical, yes, but the decision on the amount is really yours." No pan-Coptic canonical text or catechism beyond this diocesan FAQ was located, so this fact is scoped to this diocese's own published account rather than claimed as denomination-wide canon law. 7

Standard Rate Expected

Ten percent. 7

How the Expectation Is Enforced

Preached Expectation, Not Enforced 7

Law and State

Ban or Official Watchlist

Church construction and repair by Egypt's Coptic Orthodox community was long subject to a distinct, more restrictive permitting regime than mosque construction, requiring presidential approval for each building under a nineteenth century Ottoman era decree; a 2016 unified law eased, though did not eliminate, the disparity. 8

Learn More

How Many Copts There Are, and Why Nobody Agrees

The size of Egypt's Christian population is disputed, and the dispute is political rather than statistical.

Egyptian government census figures have not reported more than about four million Coptic Orthodox Christians. The church itself has claimed figures in the region of fifteen million. Press and reference works generally settle on ten per cent of the Egyptian population, roughly ten million, which is a convention rather than a finding, and independent estimates have ranged from under five million to something over seven.

The gap is too large to be explained by definition alone, though definition explains part of it: whether one counts baptised infants, practising adults, or everyone of Coptic descent produces very different answers. The rest is a question of trust. The church holds that Christians are systematically undercounted, and points to a state that has controlled census publication closely and to a legal and social environment in which conversion to Islam is registered and conversion from it effectively is not. The state has not published the underlying data in a form that would allow the claim to be tested.

This is the ordinary condition of minority religious statistics under a government with an interest in the answer, and it is not peculiar to Egypt.

What can be said without a number: the Coptic Orthodox Church is by a wide margin the largest Christian body in the Middle East, Christians are a substantial and long-established minority in Egypt rather than a remnant, and emigration since 2011 has moved a significant Coptic population to North America, Australia and Europe, where the church now has dioceses and bishops of its own.

Chalcedon, and What the Word Miaphysite Is Doing

The Coptic church has been out of communion with Rome and Constantinople since 451, and the reason is a single technical formula about how the divine and the human are joined in Christ.

What happened at Chalcedon

The council defined Christ as one person in two natures, divine and human, without confusion or division. The Alexandrian tradition, following Cyril, had spoken of one incarnate nature of God the Word, and read the two-nature formula as dividing Christ in half. Dioscorus of Alexandria was deposed at the council, and the churches of Egypt, Syria, Armenia and Ethiopia went their own way.

Why the old label is wrong

For fifteen centuries these churches were called monophysite, meaning one nature, with the implication that the humanity was absorbed into the divinity. That is the position of Eutyches, and the Coptic church condemned Eutyches too. The term now used, miaphysite, marks the difference: one united nature in which the divine and the human are each complete and neither is diminished. The distinction is not pedantry, because the charge being answered is that Christ was not fully human.

The agreements nobody expected

Since 1971 a series of joint declarations between Coptic, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox theologians have stated that the two formulas express the same faith in different vocabularies, and that the condemnations of 451 were aimed at positions neither side actually holds. Communion has not followed. Doctrinal agreement and ecclesial union are separate problems, and the second involves questions of authority the first does not touch.

Coptic Orthodoxy

12 entries

Origin Period Start Year

Solitary or Communal

Category of Practice

Who Performs It

Practice Status

Scholarly Standing

Cadence

Obligation

In Group

Connections

Associated With

Agpeya

Agpeya (Wikipedia)

This source names Coptic Orthodox directly: "Wikipedia's article on the Agpeya, the Coptic Orthodox book of hours, consulted 2026-08-12."

Source Agpeya (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

Athanasius of Alexandria

Counted the twentieth patriarch of Alexandria in the Coptic church's own succession, where he is among the most honoured of the see.

Coptic Chant

Source Two Thousand Years of Coptic ChristianityOtto F. A. Meinardus

Coptic Orthodox Church Statement Condemning Homosexuality, Ordination of Homosexuals and Same-Sex Marriage (Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Los Angeles)

This source names Coptic Orthodox directly: "Hosted on the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Los Angeles's own site, reproducing a declaration issued by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III and the Holy Synod of the Coptic Orthodox Church, delivered 26..."

Source Coptic Orthodox Church Statement Condemning Homosexuality, Ordination of Homosexuals and Same-Sex Marriage (Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Los Angeles)the holders' own account

From 1938 to 2008, 70 Years of Changes in Coptic Personal Status Laws (Daily News Egypt)

This source names Coptic Orthodox directly: "States the Coptic Orthodox Church's own 1938 bylaw named nine grounds for divorce, among them years of separation or desertion, declared death, long imprisonment, insanity, danger to a spouse..."

Source From 1938 to 2008, 70 Years of Changes in Coptic Personal Status Laws (Daily News Egypt)

His Holiness Defends Coptic Position on Divorce, Remarriage (Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Los Angeles)

This source names Coptic Church directly: "States marriage within the Coptic Church is a sacrament and a religious duty, not merely an administrative action, and that no divorce has been permitted within the Coptic community except in cases..."

Source His Holiness Defends Coptic Position on Divorce, Remarriage (Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Los Angeles)the holders' own account

Nile River

The Coptic year begins with the flood season, and a set petition of its liturgy asks that the waters of the river rise to their proper measure.

Source The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient EgyptRichard H. Wilkinson

Belongs To Church Family

Oriental Orthodox Churches

Belongs to Tradition

Christianity

Branch Of

Christianity

Contained In

Oriental Orthodoxy

One of the Oriental Orthodox churches, in communion with the others and not with Constantinople.

Source Two Thousand Years of Coptic ChristianityOtto F. A. Meinardus

Governed By Polity

Episcopal Polity

Patriarchal-Synodal Polity

Holds Element

Agpeya

The Coptic book of hours keeps seven day offices and is prayed by laypeople as well as by clergy.

Source The Egyptian or Coptic Church: A Detailed Description of Her Liturgical ServicesO. H. E. KHS-Burmester

Cassock

The black cassock is the ordinary dress of Coptic clergy and monastics, worn with the embroidered hood by monks.

Source The Egyptian or Coptic Church: A Detailed Description of Her Liturgical ServicesO. H. E. KHS-Burmester

Coptic Chant

Carried by ear rather than by notation, through cantors who learned the melodies from their teachers and taught them the same way.

Source The Egyptian or Coptic Church: A Detailed Description of Her Liturgical ServicesO. H. E. KHS-Burmester

Coptic Holy Myron

The Coptic chrism is consecrated by the patriarch and its preparation is a rite of the whole church, held only at long intervals.

Source The Egyptian or Coptic Church: A Detailed Description of Her Liturgical ServicesO. H. E. KHS-Burmester

Desert Father / Desert Mother

The desert fathers and mothers are the Coptic church own ancestors, and their sayings are read as the foundation of its ascetic life.

Source Two Thousand Years of Coptic ChristianityOtto F. A. Meinardus

Frankincense

The Coptic liturgy opens with the offering of incense, and the raising of incense is itself a named office of the Coptic rite rather than an act inside another one.

Source The Egyptian or Coptic Church: A Detailed Description of Her Liturgical ServicesO. H. E. KHS-Burmester

Gabriel

Gabriel is commemorated in the Coptic calendar and appears in the Coptic Annunciation cycle alongside Michael.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Icon

The Coptic icon tradition is continuous and was renewed in the twentieth century in a deliberately archaic style.

Source Two Thousand Years of Coptic ChristianityOtto F. A. Meinardus

Michael

Michael carries a commemoration on the twelfth day of every month of the Coptic calendar, the most frequent angelic observance in the Coptic year, and churches under his name are among the oldest foundations in Egypt.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Monk

Egyptian monasticism is where Christian monasticism began, and the desert houses of Wadi Natrun have been occupied almost without a break since the fourth century.

Source Two Thousand Years of Coptic ChristianityOtto F. A. Meinardus

Patriarch

The head of the Coptic church is patriarch of Alexandria as well as pope.

Source Two Thousand Years of Coptic ChristianityOtto F. A. Meinardus

Raphael

Raphael is commemorated in the Coptic calendar and Tobit stands within the Coptic canon.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre

The Coptic Orthodox Church holds the small chapel built against the western end of the shrine over the tomb, and is one of the three lesser communities the Status Quo recognises.

The Council of Ephesus

The Coptic church holds Ephesus as the council its own patriarch Cyril presided over, and reads everything after it against the standard he set there.

Source Two Thousand Years of Coptic ChristianityOtto F. A. Meinardus

The First Council of Constantinople

Received as the second council, and the source of the creed the Coptic church recites.

Source Two Thousand Years of Coptic ChristianityOtto F. A. Meinardus

The First Council of Nicaea

Received as the first council, and the Coptic church reckons its own patriarch Alexander and his deacon Athanasius among those who carried the argument against Arius there.

Source Two Thousand Years of Coptic ChristianityOtto F. A. Meinardus

Uriel

Uriel is received among the archangels of the Coptic tradition, whose roster is longer than the Roman three.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Held Differently

Mitre

A Coptic bishop is vested not in the folded western mitre but in a rounded embroidered crown, closer in form to the eastern imperial headpiece than to the two peaked Latin cap.

Source Two Thousand Years of Coptic ChristianityOtto F. A. Meinardus

Pope

The head of the Coptic church is Pope of Alexandria, and the title is older in Alexandria than in Rome. It carries no claim of jurisdiction over other churches, so the word is shared and the office is not.

Source Two Thousand Years of Coptic ChristianityOtto F. A. Meinardus

Trisagion (Hymn)

Sung in Greek with the addition who was crucified for us, which the Coptic church has kept and reads as addressed to Christ.

Source The Egyptian or Coptic Church: A Detailed Description of Her Liturgical ServicesO. H. E. KHS-Burmester

Rejected Here

The Council of Chalcedon

The Coptic church refuses the Chalcedonian definition and dates its separate life from that refusal, holding that two natures confessed after the union divide the one incarnate Word.

Source Two Thousand Years of Coptic ChristianityOtto F. A. Meinardus

Objects and Practices of This Tradition

Seven Sacraments

Kept in the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. The Coptic, Armenian, Syriac and Ethiopian churches keep the same seven mysteries, likewise baptising, chrismating and communicating infants in one service, each with its own rites and its own reckoning of the details.

Shenoute of Atripe

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Sub Tuum Praesidium

Kept in the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria.

The Anaphora

Kept in the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. Each of these churches has its own family of anaphoras, and the Ethiopian church uses more of them, fourteen in the received collection, than any other in Christendom.

The Annunciation

Source The Egyptian or Coptic Church: A Detailed Description of Her Liturgical ServicesO. H. E. KHS-Burmester

The Epiclesis

Kept in the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. The epiclesis follows the institution narrative, as in the Byzantine rite.

The Fraction

Kept in the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. The fraction is an extended rite here, with a fraction prayer that varies by season and by anaphora.

The Holy Trinity

The Lord's Prayer

Kept in the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria.

The Mass / Eucharist

Kept in the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. Each of the Oriental Orthodox churches keeps its own ancient liturgy in its own language, the Coptic of Saint Basil, the Armenian Badarak, the Ethiopian Qeddase, with a substantial fast required beforehand.

The resurrection of Christ

The Three Ecumenical Councils as the Complete Dogmatic Deposit

The Words of Institution

Kept in the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. The institution narrative stands within the anaphora in each of these rites.

Theophany

Kept as the Baptism of Christ on 11 Tobi, January 19 of the civil calendar, one of the seven major Lordly feasts.

Source The Egyptian or Coptic Church: A Detailed Description of Her Liturgical ServicesO. H. E. KHS-Burmester

Theosis (deification)

Veneration of icons

Kept in the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. The Coptic, Armenian and Ethiopian churches keep their own iconographic styles and honour images in worship, though they were not party to the seventh council at which the East settled the question, having separated in the fifth century.

Veneration of saints and Mary

Kept in the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. The Coptic and Ethiopian churches keep an unusually heavy Marian devotion, with monthly as well as annual feasts and widely reported apparitions such as Zeitoun in 1968, and honour their own martyrs, of whom the Coptic calendar counts very many.

Vespers

Kept in the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. The evening office is kept daily, and in the Coptic use the Raising of Incense at Vespers precedes the Liturgy of the following morning.

Showing 51 to 68 of 68 in Objects and Practices of This Tradition, page 2 of 2.

Originates in Language

Bohairic Coptic

Bohairic is the specific Coptic dialect used in the Coptic Orthodox Church's surviving liturgy.

Source The Egyptian or Coptic Church: A Detailed Description of Her Liturgical ServicesO. H. E. KHS-Burmester

Position On

Incarnation

The miaphysite definition, held since the rejection of Chalcedon in 451.

Related To

The Flight into Egypt

Sacred to This Deity

Alexandria

Alexandria remains the seat of the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria.

Source From Alexander to Actium: The Historical Evolution of the Hellenistic AgePeter Green

Uses Liturgical Language

Classical Arabic

Coptic

In the Other Atlases

Influenced

Falafel

Also in Food and Drink Atlas: which this subject influenced.

Discusses

Coptic

Also in Language Atlas: which this subject discusses.

Sources

1. Two Thousand Years of Coptic Christianity

Otto F. A. Meinardus, American University in Cairo Press, 1999On the See of Alexandria and the modern revivalView the Source

2. Coptic Orthodox Church (Wikipedia)

lead paragraph

Quote, lead paragraph

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 Coptic Orthodox Church and

View the Source

3. From 1938 to 2008, 70 Years of Changes in Coptic Personal Status Laws (Daily News Egypt)

Daily News Egypt, 2008the stated position on marriage, its detail and its record of that positionView the Source

4. Coptic Orthodox Church Statement Condemning Homosexuality, Ordination of Homosexuals and Same-Sex Marriage (Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Los Angeles)

Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Los Angeles, Southern California, and Hawaii, 2003the stated position on sexuality and its supporting detailthe holders' own accountView the Source

5. International Religious Freedom Report

United States Department of State, Office of International Religious Freedom, US Department of State, 2023View the Source

6. Coptic Orthodox Endowments Authority (Coptic Orthodox Church official site)

Coptic Orthodox ChurchView the Source

7. Frequently Asked Questions on Tithing to the Church

Coptic Orthodox Diocese of the Southern United States (suscopts.org)View the Source

8. Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)

Encyclopaedia Britannica editors, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 2024View the Source

9. Pope Tawadros II: Number of Copts 15 Million in Egypt (EgyptToday, 2023)

EgyptToday staff, EgyptToday, 2023View the Source

10. How Many Christians Are There in Egypt? (Pew Research Center, 2011)

Pew Research Center staff, Pew Research Center, 2011View the Source

The Egyptian or Coptic Church: A Detailed Description of Her Liturgical Services

O. H. E. KHS-Burmester, Societe d'Archeologie Copte, Cairo, 1967View the Source

The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised edition

F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2005View the Source

His Holiness Defends Coptic Position on Divorce, Remarriage (Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Los Angeles)

Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Los Angeles, Southern California, and Hawaii, 2010the marriage-position detail's corroboration of the 1971 restriction's continuitythe holders' own accountView the Source

Global Christianity: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World's Christian Population

Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 2011On the size of Egypt's Christian populationView the Source

Essays About This Entity (2 essays)

Four Oriental Orthodox Churches Sing the Same Hymn to Christ, Not the Trinity

Sung in Greek with the addition kept, addressed to Christ

Read the Essay

Monastic Vows Are Three Different Legal Transfers Wearing One English Name

Monastic profession descending directly from the Egyptian desert, the oldest continuous observance in Christianity

Read the Essay

Community

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Organizations In This Tradition

St. Mark Coptic Orthodox ChurchJersey City Verified
St. Mary & St. Antonios Coptic Orthodox ChurchRidgewood Verified

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The Inner World

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Coptic Orthodoxy

What happened at Chalcedon

Why the old label is wrong

The agreements nobody expected

Agpeya

Baptismal life

Icon Painting

Liturgy of the Hours

Matins

Observing the Sabbath

Pilgrimage

Prayer

Seven Sacraments

Veneration of icons

Veneration of saints and Mary

Vespers

Associated With

Belongs To Church Family

Belongs to Tradition

Branch Of

Contained In

Governed By Polity

Holds Element

Held Differently

Rejected Here

Objects and Practices of This Tradition

Originates in Language

Position On

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Sacred to This Deity

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