Judaism, Christianity and Islam flourished side by side in Egypt for a long period of time.
Christianity was first to get a foothold among the Jews in Alexandria and spread quickly throughout the Nile Valley. In 381, following times of oppression, Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire, including Egypt. However, Ancient Egyptian beliefs and rituals continued to live on until the end of the fifth century AD.
In 641, the Arabs conquered Egypt and Islam was introduced. The first mosque on African soil was built in the newly established capital of Fustat. There were also churches and synagogues where religious scripts were studied and stored in archives.
By the eleventh century, Muslims were in the majority though Christians and Jews were still allowed to practice their faith. The three religions co-existed in Egypt until the mid-twentieth century. Today, only around 10% of the Egyptians are followers of the Christian faith. After the Suez Crisis in 1956, most Jews left the country.
After the Christianization, the Egyptian language was written using the Greek alphabet. Seven extra characters, derived from the demotic script, were added to represent phonetics missing in the Greek. This final stage of Ancient Egyptian is called Coptic.
The word ‘Copt’ stems from the Greek word ‘Aegyptos’, which means ‘Egyptian’. Today, the word ‘Copt’ is synonymous with an Egyptian with a Christian faith and ‘Coptic’ refers to the Christian heritage and language. The Coptic Church broke with the rest of the Orthodox Church following the Council of Chalcedon in 451 and has since been led by its own Patriarch or Pope.
From the eleventh century onwards, the Copts gradually abandoned their language and switched to Arabic. The Coptic language is now only used during worship, alongside with Arabic.