ABSTRACT
The Holy Family visited Egypt (Matt 2:13–21) and there were Egyptians at Pentecost (Acts 2:10), but the Church of Alexandria began with Mark the Evangelist preaching on the streets of Alexandria and establishing a church leadership, ordaining Anianus as the first bishop of Alexandria together with three presbyters and seven deacons (Callahan 1992: 62–68). The earliest reference to this tradition is in Eusebius of Caesarea’s Ecclesiastical History (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 2.16); he also lists, without any details, the names of eleven bishops who succeeded Mark, ending with Demetrius (r. 189–231) (ibid. 2.24; 3.14, 21; 4.1, 4–5, 11, 19; 5.9, 22). When Mark the Evangelist arrived in Alexandria, Egypt had been under Roman rule since 31 bc. This chapter will set the stage by describing the political, social, and economic context within which Christianity emerged in Egypt together with earliest evidence of church structure and organization. This will be followed by an examination of the Coptic Orthodox Church’s relations with the Roman state under both pagan and Christianized emperors. The chapter will end with the demise of the Roman Empire in Egypt marked by the Arab conquest in 641.
