The Early Coptic Papacy

The Egyptian Church and Its Leadership in Late Antiquity: The Popes of Egypt, Volume 1

Stephen J. Davis, Stephen J. Davis, Gawdat Gabra

• Publisher: The American University in Cairo Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9789774168345
• eBook ISBN: 9781617979101
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

The Copts, adherents of the Egyptian Orthodox Church, today represent the largest Christian community in the Middle East, and their presiding bishops have been accorded the title of pope since the third century AD. This study analyzes the development of the Egyptian papacy from its origins to the rise of Islam. How did the papal office in Egypt evolve as a social and religious institution during the first six and a half centuries AD? How do the developments in the Alexandrian patriarchate reflect larger developments in the Egyptian church as a whole—in its structures of authority and lines of communication, as well as in its social and religious practices? In addressing such questions, Stephen J. Davis examines a wide range of evidence—letters, sermons, theological treatises, and church histories, as well as art, artifacts, and archaeological remains—to discover what the patriarchs did as leaders, how their leadership was represented in public discourses, and how those representations definitively shaped Egyptian Christian identity in late antiquity. The Early Coptic Papacy is Volume 1 of The Popes of Egypt: A History of the Coptic Church and Its Patriarchs. Also available: Volume 2, The Coptic Papacy in Islamic Egypt, 641–1517 (Mark N. Swanson) and Volume 3, The Emergence of the Modern Coptic Papacy (Magdi Girgis, Nelly van Doorn-Harder).

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Editors’ Introduction
• Author’s Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• One The Succession of St. Mark: Apostolic Traditions and the Origins of the Egyptian Church (Saint Mark to Demetrius)
• Two Bishops, Teachers, and Martyrs: The Shaping of Episcopal Authority in an Age of Persecution (Demetrius to Peter I)
• Three Theological Controversy and the Cultivation of Monastic Support: The Alexandrian Patriarchate from 312 to 451 (Achillas to Dioscorus I)
• Four Contesting the Alexandrian Papacy: Ecclesiastical “Colonialism” and the Egyptian Church from 451 to the Rise of Islam (Dioscorus I to Benjamin I)
• Epilogue: The Making of the Coptic Papacy
• Appendix 1: A List of Egyptian Popes up to the Rise of Islam
• Appendix 2: The Election of Alexandrian Patriarchs in the Early Church
• Appendix 3: The Anti-Chalcedonian Patriarchate of Alexandria (477–577)
• Works Cited: Primary Sources and Collections
• Works Cited: Secondary Sources
• Notes
• Sources of Illustrations
• Index