Egypt With Omar Sharif

The Copts

The word Copt in modern usage refers to Christian Egyptians, namely members of the Coptic Orthodox Church (who form the majority), the Coptic Catholic Church, and the Coptic Protestant Church. While their exact numbers are subject to controversy, Coptic sources put forward figures ranging between 10 and 15 million. However, the latest estimates (2006) put them at nearly 7.1 million or 9% of the Egyptian population (another 1% is made up of Christians of other denominations) , making them the largest Christian community in the Middle East and the largest Arabic-speaking non-Muslim group in the world.

The English word Copt is from New Latin Coptus, which is derived from Arabic qubṭi, an Arabisation of the Coptic word kubti (Bohairic) and/or kuptaion (Sahidic). The Coptic itself is derived from the Greek word , aiguptios: "Egyptian", aiguptos: "Egypt".

The Greek term for "Egypt" has a long history. It goes back to the Mycenaean language (an early form of Greek) where the word a3-ku-pi-ti-jo (lit. "Egyptian"; used here as a man's name) was written in Linear B. This Mycenaean form is likely from Egyptian ("Hut-ka-Ptah"), literally "Estate (or 'House') of Ptah" (cf. Akkadian the name of the temple complex of the god Ptah at Memphis. As the chief temple precinct of the capital of Egypt, the name was applied to the entire city of Memphis and ultimately to the country as a whole.

A similar situation is observed in the name Memphis [Greek Μέμφις], which comes from the Egyptian name of the pyramid complex of king Pepi II, mn nfr ppy (lit. "Established in Perfection or 'Beauty' is Pepy") at Saqqara but which was applied to the nearby capital city. Interestingly, this usage survived in Sahidic as Gupton and Kupton, meaning "Memphis". In modern Egyptian Arabic, the local name of the capital Cairo is Masr which is also the name of Egypt as a whole.

There is another theory which states that the Arabic word qibṭ "Copt" was an Arabisation of the Greek name of the town of Coptos (modern Qifṭ, Coptic Kebt and Keft), but is generally no longer accepted.

References to Copts in the Coptic language are both Greek and Coptic in origin. The words kuptaion (Sahidic) and kubti (Bohairic) are attested, but are used in the surviving texts to refer to the language, rather than the people; these both derive from Greek Αἴγύπτιος aiguptios "Egyptian". The "native" Coptic term referring to Copts was rem en kēme (Sahidic), lem en kēmi (Fayyumic), rem en khēmi (Bohairic), etc., literally "people of Egypt"; cf. Egyptian rmṯ n kmt, Demotic rmt n kmỉ.

Coptic has become a contemporary reference pertaining to Egyptian Christianity (particularly the Orthodox branch), its culture, and its followers, who previously included Ethiopian and Eritrean Christians before the separation of their churches. It also refers to the last phase of the Egyptian language and its written alphabet which are still employed by the Coptic Church. The etymological meaning of the word, however, pertains to all people of Egyptian origins, not only those who profess Coptic (Egyptian) Christian Orthodoxy. Medieval writers until the Mamluk period often used the words Copts and Egyptians interchangeably to describe all the people of Egypt whether Christian or Muslim. After the bulk of the Egyptian population converted to Islam, the word Copt came to be associated more commonly with Egyptians who remained Christian. In the 20th century, some Egyptian nationalists and intellectuals began using the term Copts in the historical sense. For example, Markos Pasha Semeika, founder of the Coptic Museum, addressed a group of Egyptian students in these words: "All of you are Copts. Some of you are Muslim Copts, others are Christian Copts, but all of you are descended from the ancient Egyptians." .However, most Egyptian Muslims today are more likely to identify simply as Egyptian.

Coptic Orthodox Christianity is the indigenous form of Christianity that, according to tradition, the apostle Mark established in Egypt in the middle of the 1st century (approximately 42). The Church belongs to the Oriental Orthodoxy, and the see of Alexandria. Coptic Christianity has been a distinct church body since the Council of Chalcedon in 451. The head of the church is the Pope of Alexandria and the Patriarch of the Holy See of Saint Mark, currently His Holiness Pope Shenouda III. More than 95% of Egypt's Christians belong to the Coptic Orthodox Church, but other "Patriarchates/Patriarchs of Alexandria" also exist (Coptic Catholic, Greek/Latin Catholic and Greek Orthodox -

History

Egypt is identified in the Bible as the place of refuge that the Holy Family sought in its flight from Judea: "When he arose, he took the young Child and His mother by night and departed for Egypt, and was there until the death of Herod the Great, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt I called My Son" (Matthew 2:12-23). The Egyptian Church, which is now more than nineteen centuries old, was the subject of many prophecies in the Old Testament. Isaiah the prophet, in Chapter 19, Verse 19 says "In that day there will be an altar to the LORD in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to the LORD at its border."

The first Christians in Egypt were mainly Alexandrian Jews such as Theophilus, whom Saint Luke the Evangelist addresses in the introductory chapter of his gospel. When the church was founded by Mark during the reign of the Roman emperor Nero, a great multitude of native Egyptians (as opposed to Greeks or Jews) embraced the Christian faith. Christianity spread throughout Egypt within half a century of Saint Mark's arrival in Alexandria as is clear from the New Testament writings found in Bahnasa, in Middle Egypt, which date around the year 200, and a fragment of the Gospel of John, written in Coptic, which was found in Upper Egypt and can be dated to the first half of the second century. In the second century Christianity began to spread to the rural areas, and scriptures were translated into the local language, namely Coptic.

The Catechetical School of Alexandria, Egypt

The Catechetical School of Alexandria is the oldest catechetical school in the world. Founded around 190 by the scholar Pantanaeus, the school of Alexandria became an important institution of religious learning, where students were taught by scholars such as Athenagoras, Clement, Didymus, and the great Origen, who was considered the father of theology and who was also active in the field of commentary and comparative Biblical studies. Origen wrote over 6,000 commentaries of the Bible in addition to his famous Hexapla. Many scholars such as Jerome visited the school of Alexandria to exchange ideas and to communicate directly with its scholars. The scope of this school was not limited to theological subjects; science, mathematics and humanities were also taught there. The question-and-answer method of commentary began there, and 15 centuries before Braille, wood-carving techniques were in use there by blind scholars to read and write.

The Theological college of the catechetical school of Alexandria was re-established in 1893. The new school currently has campuses in Alexandria, Cairo, New Jersey, and Los Angeles, where Coptic priests-to-be and other qualified men and women are taught among other subjects Christian theology, history, Coptic language and art - including chanting, music, iconography, and tapestry.

Egyptian origin of the cross symbol

For over 2500 years the pagan symbol of the ankh cross was a ubiquitous symbol of spiritual life. Unlike most Egyptian sacred images, it was not a human-like god with the head of an animal, or even the disk of Sun, but a pure symbol of deity. Literally it was taken to be the symbol of the Nile, which gave life, dealt death, and offered rebirth when it fertilized lands after flooding. It was not hard to see how that ageless symbol would somehow become connected to a faith, centered around Jesus Christ who had been executed on another kind of cross and who was believed to have risen from the dead after 3 days. Egypt had long associated the ankh cross with all that was unknowable and transcendent in their polytheistic faith. Everywhere else in the Roman influenced world, a cross was merely an implement of execution for slaves and enemies of the Roman state. It was very degrading to connect the memory of the Saviour of the world to something that connotated an ignoble and lingering death. The ankh provided a means to bring the cross into the "pantheon" of Christian symbolism, after 250 years of rejection by the Jewish and Greek followers of Jesus

The Arab conquest of Egypt

The Arab conquest of Egypt took place in 641. Although the Imperial forces resisted the Arab army under Amr ibn al-As, the majority of the civilian population, having suffered persecution for their differing Christian beliefs, were in the beginning not hostile to the new rulers[citation needed]. Considered "People of the Book", Christians were allowed to practice their religion, under the protection of the Islamic Shari'a law. This protection stemmed in part from a Hadith of the Prophet (whose Egyptian wife Maria had borne him a son who died in infancy, named Ibrahim) that advised "When you conquer Egypt, be kind to the Copts for they are your proteges and kith and kin" .

Despite the political upheaval, Egypt remained a mainly Christian land, although gradual conversions to Islam over the centuries had the effect of changing Egypt from a mainly Christian to a mainly Muslim country by the end of the 12th century.This process was sped along by persecutions during and following the reign of the Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah (reigned AD 996-1021) and the Crusades,and also by the acceptance of Arabic as a liturgical language by the Pope of Alexandria Gabriel ibn-Turaik.

During Arab rule, the Coptics needed to pay a special tax called the "gezya" in order to practice their faith. This tax was abolished in 1855.

From the 19th century to the 1952 revolution

The position of the Copts began to improve early in the 19th century under the stability and tolerance of Muhammad Ali's dynasty. The Coptic community ceased to be regarded by the state as an administrative unit and, by 1855, the main mark of Copts' inferiority, the Jizya tax, was lifted. Shortly thereafter, Christians started to serve in the Egyptian army. The 1919 revolution in Egypt, the first grassroots display of Egyptian identity in centuries, stands as a witness to the homogeneity of Egypt's modern society with both its Muslim and Christian components.