The Copts are a small non-Chalcedonian Orthodox ethno-religious group from Egypt. The vast majority of this 1.2 million strong community still reside in Egypt, though there is an increasingly large diaspora in America and Europe.
For the first few centuries of this fledgling community’s existence they were harshly persecuted as non-pagans. This was made even worse by the schism in 450 A.D that resulted in the Coptic Church rejecting the Council of Chalcedon and in turn increasing hostilities with the wider Christian world. Branded as heretics, the Copts otherwise flourished in Alexandria until the Muslim hordes overtook the then-Christian kingdom of Egypt in the 7th century.
The Copts were largely tolerated by their Muslim overlords, though particular periods of oppression occasionally would flare up when new rulers would take over from the previous ones. This status-quo was quickly destroyed by Western imperialism in the region, particularly that of the British and Lord Cromer.
The late 19th century was a tumultuous time for the Copts because they all became unemployed. When for the past several centuries they had been bookkeepers and clerks for the many Muslim regimes the British made them obsolete by completely reconfiguring and destroying the Copts’ organisational method which some scholars consider to have had Pharaonic roots. Many Copts during this period fled due to the initial instability to neighbouring areas mostly in the Levant. Unemployed, the remaining Copts in Egypt took up sanitation and animal husbandry.
In the 1960’s the Copts as a minority class quickly allied themselves with Nasser and and anti-monarchists. This was largely because Pope Shenouda III (Pope in this context refers not to the Bishop of Rome but to the Patriarch of Alexandria who is considered the spiritual father of the Coptic Church) made great efforts to modernise the Copts and assimilate themselves into society. Furthermore, this new alliance with the administration served as a layer of protection against the more extreme Muslim Brotherhood.
