CHAPTER VII
THE COPTIC CHURCH IN THE PAST
The Coptic Church is the national Church of Egypt — the Alexandrine Patriarchate turned Monophysite. The overwhelming majority of the population of Egypt accepted this heresy. The orthodox in Egypt — the so-called Melkites — who clung to Chalcedon and the "Emperor's Church," were never more than a small minority of foreign (Greek) functionaries and the Imperial garrison. The situation is that Christian Egypt turned Monophysite. As a matter of historic continuity, the old Church of Egypt, the Church of Athanasius and Cyril, is now represented by the Monophysite Copts. They are the old Church, fallen into heresy and schism. The Orthodox in Egypt, with their foreign rite and foreign language, are just as much foreigners as the Latins. If a man pins his faith on the idea of one Catholic Church made up of separated national branches, the Egyptian branch should be the Coptic sect.
For the history of the Copts I use chiefly Eutychius, Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria (933-940),[1] Severus of Al-Ushmunain,[2]
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- ↑ Sa'īd Ibn Baṭrīḳ (Eutychius): Contextio Gemmarum (in Arabic, naẓm alǵawāhir, ed. by L. Cheikho, S.J., in the Corp. Script. Christ. Orient., 1906-1909; Latin version in P.G. ci. 889-1232), a history of the world down to 938 with details about the Church of Egypt from the orthodox point of view.
- ↑ Severus, Monophysite Bishop of Al-Ushmunain: History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria (Arabic and English, ed. by B. Evetts in the Patrologia Orientalis, vols. i. and v.), a Coptic rival work to Eutychius. Severus' history (to the 6th cent.) is continued by other writers to the 19th, and forms a kind of Liber Pontificalis of the Coptic Church.
