The Church that I chose to do my assignment on, is the Coptic Orthodox Church.
This appealed to me because of its Egyptian background and I am very interested in Ancient Egypt, the Pyramids and so forth.
The actual word Copt comes from the Greek word "aigyptos" which was the name for the first capital of Ancient Egypt. Today the word Coptic describes Christian Egyptians, they way they live, their language, their believes, their script and their art and architecture.
All Coptic's have a simple and important belief which is as follows;.
One is God; the Father of all. One is his Son who became man, died and rose from the dead on the third day, and raised us up with him. One is the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, and the same in nature, who proceeds from the father, and sanctifies the whole creation, teaching us to worship the Holy Trinity in one divinity, one nature. We praise Him, and we bless Him forever. Amen.
History.
The Coptic Church is based on the teachings of Saint Mark who brought Christianity to Egypt during the reign of the Roman Emperor Nero during the first century. This was a great time of persecution for Christians, many were killed just for believing in their faith, so Mark moved out from Rome, so he wouldnt be tortured, to Egypt to try and spread the word of his Lord to more people.
He was successful and as the people around Egypt changed the ways of Mark to fit in with their lifestyle and climate, they branched off to become, The Christian Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt.
Language.
The Coptic Church uses its own unique language, which was based on the Ancient Egyptian language and the Greek language.
Church services throughout the world of Coptic Orthodox are still said in this traditional Coptic language which dates back to the creation of the church during Mark's era.
Countries.
In 1992 there were over nine million Coptic Orthodox followers throughout Egypt (Not bad considering the population of Egypt at this time was fifty-seven million).