Coptic Orthodox Church (Miaphysite branch)

Leaders

• Dioscorus I
• Timothy Aelurus
• Theodosius I of Alexandria
• Benjamin I (at the Arab conquest)

Beliefs

Miaphysite Christology after Cyril and Dioscorus. It uses the Coptic language and liturgies (Basil, Gregory and Cyril), and Coptic and Arabic in later centuries.

Home bases

• Alexandria (Coptic Orthodox patriarchate)

  Alexandria, Egypt · 5th–present

  After Dioscorus was deposed at Chalcedon in 451, most Egyptian Christians and their bishops rejected the council. Rival patriarchs followed: anti-Chalcedonian Timothy Aelurus and Chalcedonian Proterius, who was lynched in 457. The anti-Chalcedonian line became the Coptic Orthodox Church, whose patriarchate later moved to Cairo.

  

Also named in earlier place batches: Coptic Egypt places (see Africa batch).

Spread

Egypt, where it became the church of the large majority of Christians, with missions and daughter churches in Nubia and Ethiopia. The Ethiopian church received its metropolitans from Alexandria until 1959.

Books

• History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria

What happened to it

Survived Byzantine pressure and Arab rule and is the largest Christian church in the Middle East today. Its patriarchal seat is in Cairo, with the historic title in Alexandria.

Hostile sources

• Evagrius Scholasticus. Church History c. 593

  Chalcedonian.

Their own words

• Coptic Church. History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria 10th–11th c.

  Insider.

Sources

• Coptic Orthodox Church

  Wikipedia. Accessed 2026-11-11.

• Coptic LiteratureConfessional source

  Catholic Encyclopedia 1913 (confessional). Accessed 2026-11-11.