Coptic Orthodox

The Coptic Orthodox Church (of Alexandria) originally split from the Eastern Orthodox Church in 451 A.D. and has now become the largest Christian church in Egypt and the middle east. Alexandria, Egypt was one of the original seats of Christianity and boasted such theologians as Origen, Clement, Athanasius, and Cyril. For many years it was the lives and writings of the "desert fathers" like St. Anthony that inspired the rise of monasticism that eventually spread to all of the Christian world until the time of the Reformation. Historically, the Coptic Orthodox Church was believed to have been founded by St. Mark, the apostle and evangelist, around 60 A.D.