Copts

Copts (kŏpts), the native Christian minority of Egypt; estimates of the number of Copts in Egypt range from 5% to 17% of the population. Copts are not ethnically distinct from other Egyptians; they are a cultural remnant, i.e., the Christians who have not been converted to Islam in the 14 centuries since the Muslim invasion. The

Coptic language, now extinct, was the form of the ancient Egyptian language spoken in early Christian times; by the 12th cent. it was superseded by Arabic.

Most Copts belong to the

Coptic Church, an autonomous Christian sect that officially adheres to Monophysitism, which was declared (451) a heresy by the Council of Chalcedon. The church is in communion with the Jacobite Church (also Monophysite), but a traditionally close relationship to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church was dissolved in 1961 when it declared itself independent of the Coptic patriarch. In rites and customs the Coptic Church resembles other Eastern churches; however, Copts circumcise their infants before baptism and observe certain Mosaic dietary laws. Coptic, Greek, and Arabic languages are all used ceremonially. The chief bishop, the patriarch of Alexandria, is in direct succession to the 5th-century patriarchs who embraced Monophysitism; he is entitled pope.

Among the Copts a small minority are in communion with the pope; these "Catholic Copts" have their own organization and churches but share the rites and practices of the Coptic Church. This community began to develop in the 18th cent. Protestant missionaries have established some Coptic congregations. Besides Copts there are Orthodox communities in Egypt, mainly Greek and Syrian; the Orthodox patriarch of Alexandria traces his succession to the Catholic patriarchs of the 5th cent. There are also many Catholic Syrians, mainly Melchites and Maronites. In the last decades of the 20th cent., Copts were the object of attacks by Muslim fundamentalists in Egypt.

Bibliography

See D. Attwater, The Christian Churches of the East (2 vol., 1947–48); E. Wakin, A Lonely Minority: The Story of Egypt's Copts (1963); M. Kāmil, Coptic Egypt (1968); O. F. A. Meindarus, Christian Egypt: Faith and Life (1970).

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Copts 

Egyptians who profess Christianity.

The Copts live chiefly in the cities of the Arab Republic of Egypt (such as Asyut, Akhmim, and Cairo); there are also small communities of Copts in the Sudan, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, Iraq, and Kuwait. Population, more than 2 million (mid-1960’s, esti-mate). The Copts speak Arabic (the Coptic language, widely spoken in the past, has been preserved only as a liturgical language). The majority of the Copts belong to the Monophysite Coptic Church, which was widespread in Egypt from the fifth century to the Arab conquest (639–642). The Muslim conquerors achieved the Islamization of the local population through various administrative and economic measures—lands owned by monasteries were given to mosques and non-Muslims were subject to higher taxes (on land, for example). As a result, Christianity survived only among some of the town dwellers who were free from land taxes.

Coptic Christianity acquired certain Islamic traits: the Copts pray facing the East, they take off their shoes at the entrance to a church but do not remove their head coverings, and so forth. The Coptic Church has its own churches, monasteries, and schools and is headed by a patriarch. The Copts have their own special calendar, which begins with Aug. 29, 284. The Copts (traditionally) work as servants, artisans, merchants, and laborers; a small number are peasants.

G. A. SHPAZHNIKOV

From the fourth to the seventh centuries, before the Arab conquest, the Copts created a distinctive art, which had absorbed the cultural heritage of ancient Egypt and antiquity. Architecture is represented by basilicas (at the White, Red, and Bawit monasteries), domed sepulchres (in al-Bagalat), and two- to four-story dwellings. Imitative art is represented by stone and wood reliefs, paintings, miniatures, and wax painting on boards; decorative and applied art is represented by wood and bone carving and highly artistic fabrics. The realistic images of fourthand early fifth-century Coptic art, which were genre works or were borrowed from Hellenic mythology, were replaced in the fifth and sixth centuries by conventional pictures on Christian subjects; motifs of Near Eastern art (including lion hunting scenes) became widespread in the late sixth and early seventh centuries.

REFERENCES

Bok, V. G. Materialy po arkheologii khristianskogo Egipta. St. Petersburg, 1901.
Mat’e, M., and K. Liapunova. Khudozhestvennye tkani Koptskogo Egipta. Moscow-Leningrad, 1951.
Koptskie tkani: Sobranie Gos. muzeia izobrazitel’nykh iskusstv im. A. S. Pushkina.: Moskva. Compiled, with an introduction and catalog by R. Shurinova. [Album.] Leningrad, 1967.
Cramer, M. Das christlich-koptische Ägypten einst und heute: Eine Orientierung. Wiesbaden, 1959.

R. D. SHURINOVA