Coptic identity

Copts (Coptic: ⲚⲓⲢⲉⲙ̀ⲛⲭⲏⲙⲓ ni.Remenkīmi, literally: the Egyptians) are the native inhabitants of Egypt, and the direct descendants of the Ancient Egyptians whose ancestors embraced Christianity in the first centuries. After the Arab conquest of Egypt, Egyptians who converted to Islam ceased to call themselves by the demonym Copt, and the term became the distinctive name of the Christian minority in Egypt. Coptic Christians lost their majority status in Egypt after the 14th century and the spread of Islam in the entirety of North Africa. Today, Copts form a major ethno-religious group whose origins date back to the Ancient Egyptians.

The Coptic Christian population in Egypt is the largest Christian community in the Middle East. Christians represent around 15% to 20% of a population of over 115 million Egyptians, though estimates vary (see Religion in Egypt). Around 95% of them belong to the native Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. The remaining (around 800,000) are divided between the Coptic Catholic Church and Coptic Protestant churches.

The question of Coptic identity was never raised before the rise of pan-Arabism under Nasser in the early 1950s. Up to that point, both Egyptian Muslims and Egyptian Christians viewed themselves as only Egyptians without any Arab sentiment. The struggle to maintain this Egyptian identity began as Nasser and his regime tried to impose an Arab identity on the country, and attempted to erase all references to Egypt as a separate and unique entity. Today, Copts and many Egyptian Muslims reject Arab nationalism, emphasizing indigenous Egyptian heritage and culture as well as their own unique ethnicity and genetic makeup, which are completely different from those of the Arabs. Persecution has become pivotal to the Copts' sense of identity.

Studies have showed the ancient Egyptians to be genetically intermediary between the populations of Southern Europe and Nubia (two frequently-used reference points). A study of the genetics of Copts has confirmed them to be the most ancient population of Egypt, sharing ancestry with North African and Middle Eastern populations. Thus, Copts have a genetic composition that resembles the ancestral Egyptian population, without the present strong Arab influence.

Copts as Egyptians

In Greco-Roman Egypt, the term Copt designated the local population of Egypt, as opposed to the elite group of foreign rulers and settlers (Greeks, Romans, etc.) who came to Egypt from other regions and established prominent empires.

The word Copt was then adopted in English in the 17th century, from Neo-Latin Coptus, Cophtus, which is derived from Arabic collective qubṭ, qibṭ قبط "the Copts" with nisba adjective qubṭī, qibṭī قبطي, plural aqbāṭ أقباط; Also quftī, qiftī, Arabic /f/ representing historical Coptic /p/. an Arabisation of the Coptic word kubti (Bohairic) and/or kuptaion (Sahidic). The Coptic word is in turn an adaptation of the Greek Αἰγύπτιος "Egyptian".

After the Arab conquest of Egypt, the term Copt became restricted to those Egyptians who remained adhering to the Christian religion.

In their own Coptic language, which represents the final stage of the Egyptian language, the Copts referred to themselves as rem en kēme (Sahidic) ⲣⲙⲛⲕⲏⲙⲉ, lem en kēmi (Fayyumic), rem en khēmi (Bohairic) ⲣⲉⲙ̀ⲛⲭⲏⲙⲓ, which literally means "people of Egypt" or "Egyptians"; cf. Egyptian rmṯ n kmt, Demotic rmt n kmỉ.

Copts take particular pride in their Egyptian identity. Over the centuries, they have always rejected and fought against other identities that foreign rulers attempted to force upon them, stressing their own Egyptian identity. While an integral part of their society, Copts remained culturally and religiously distinct from their surroundings. Their liturgical language is Coptic, which is the last stage of the development of the Egyptian language. Coptic music is a continuation of ancient Egyptian music, and Coptic culture is considered a continuation of that of Ancient Egypt. For instance, Copts still use the same calendar and months that have been used by their Egyptian forefathers for thousands of years. Thus, modern Copts are not only genetically descendants of Ancient Egyptians, but retain some tangible cultural Egyptian heritage such as language, music and more.

Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt

An Egyptian man with Anubis

Faiyum mummy portrait of an Egyptian man with sword belt, Altes Museum

Egypt has always been one of the most populous lands of the ancient Mediterranean world, with a population of at least 3 million Egyptians in the first century BC according to the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus. This large population has been undoubtedly always able to absorb and Egyptianize settlers who came to the country starting in the Third Intermediate Period. The power and distinctiveness of Egyptian culture was such that immigrants rapidly became part of Egyptian society and were often distinguishable only by names, if at all.

The Ptolemaic kings who ruled Egypt after the death of Alexander the Great were of Greek origin. They respected the Egyptians and their local religion, and erected many temples for Egyptian gods, such as the Temple of Horus in Edfu and the Temple of Hathor at Dendra. The Ptolemies drained the marshes of the Faiyum to create a new province of cultivatable land, where some Greeks as well as some war prisoners from Syria and Palestine were settled. It is impossible to ascertain the exact number of non native Egyptians during the Hellenistic period because no full population census survives today. While 10% may stand as a very approximate figure for the total immigrant population in Ptolemaic Egypt, including both Greeks and non-Greeks, this figure has been challenged as excessive. The Faiyum mummy portraits reflect the complex synthesis of the predominant Egyptian culture and religion, with that of Hellenistic art, and were attached to sarcophagi of firmly Egyptian character. The dental morphology of the Roman-period Faiyum mummies was compared with that of earlier Egyptian populations, and was found to be "much more closely akin" to that of ancient Egyptians than to Greeks or other European populations.

Despite the presence of these immigrants and a foreign pharaoh, Egypt remained home primarily to Egyptians, by far the largest group within the population. In fact, most of the rural and urban native population that lived in towns, villages and hamlets the length of the Nile Valley continued their lives little changed during the rule of the Ptolemies. Even in Alexandria, the capital of Ptolemaic Egypt and the largest Greek city outside of Greece, the number of native Egyptians far outnumbered that of Greeks. In numbers and in culture, Egypt remained essentially Egyptian, even as foreign communities were incorporated into the life of the country. Over time, the small numbers of foreigners were integrated into the Egyptian population so that, when finally Rome took control of Egypt in 30 BC, the vast majority of Greeks in Egypt were essentially categorized by the Roman conquerors as Egyptians.

Egyptians continued to speak and write in their native Egyptian language. Egyptian hieroglyphs were used primarily in formal temple environments, while Egyptian demotic continued as the form more widely used by the people. Demotic, the third phase of development of the Egyptian language, was used by the native Egyptians during the Ptolemaic period in public and private law and administration, in private uses, and as a cultural medium for religious writings and narrative literature. Greek was employed for official administrative and legal purposes. Egyptian Greek is the variety of Greek spoken in Egypt from antiquity until the Arab conquest of Egypt in the 7th century. Egyptian Greek adopted many loanwords from the Egyptian language, and there was a great deal of intracommunity bilingualism in Egypt.

By the Roman period, the use of Demotic slowly gave way to the fourth and last stage of development of the Egyptian language, known as Coptic, although the use of Demotic remained until the middle of the fifth century AD Coptic was simply the Egyptian language written mainly in Greek letters, with seven Demotic letters representing sounds in Egyptian that did not exist in Greek. It is noteworthy however to remember that Coptic is a term used to describe a script, not a language, and that the Egyptians themselves always called their evolving local language Egyptian. The Romans classified the entire population of the Egyptian countryside as "Egyptian". By the time of Roman emperor Caracalla in the 2nd century AD, ethnic Egyptians could be distinguished from Greeks in Egypt only by their speech.

The creation of Coptic as a coherent writing system to express the Egyptian language undoubtedly served to cement the distinction between the native population in Egypt and the ruling Byzantine Greeks. The earliest of such Coptic manuscripts date back to the third century AD, and became well established in the fourth century AD. The earliest Coptic texts were not only Christian in nature, but there were also many Manichaean and Gnostic manuscripts in circulation during that period. The most prolific writer in Coptic was Shenoute of Atripe who lived in Upper Egypt in the fourth and fifth centuries. In the period after Shenoute, Coptic writing significantly flourished, and the Coptic language became a rich medium for literary composition, moving closer to official status in Egypt, but not yet reaching it.

Emergence of Coptic Identity

Coptic Cross on a column in the Temple of Philae

Coptic liturgical inscription from Upper Egypt, dated to the fifth or sixth century

Saint Mina is the most popular Coptic martyr in Egypt

In the fourth and fifth centuries AD, the foundations were laid for the divergence in doctrine between the native Christian Church of the Egyptians, and that of the empire. The persecution and exile in the fourth century by emperor Constantine the Great of Athanasius, the native Egyptian patriarch of the Church of Alexandria, became the embodiment of the Egyptian character of the Church in Egypt. The persecution of Athanasius helped to create a type for the later patriarchs of Alexandria, who were repeatedly portrayed as defenders of the truth against outsiders and non-Egyptians. The official schism occurred at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD. The council, which condemned, deposed, exiled and replaced the native Egyptian Patriarch of Alexandria Dioscorus I, was rejected by the Egyptian delegation to the council, and by extension by the entirety of the native Egyptian population. As a result of the Council of Chalcedon, the Church of Alexandria, which had jurisdiction over the entire country of Egypt, as well as all of continent of Africa, was divided into a church that accepted the decrees of the council, and one that rejected them. The church that accepted the council, became known as the Chalcedonian church, and survives today as the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria. On the other hand, the church that rejected the council of Chalcedon, to whom the vast majority of the native Egyptians adhered, became the predecessor of the Coptic Orthodox Church.

The process of identity-building for the native Egyptians emerged into view most clearly in the period after the reign of emperor Justinian I in the sixth century AD. That process became the foundation for the evolution of a distinctive Egyptian character for the Coptic Orthodox Church, with its distancing from the empire's official Chalcedonian Orthodoxy and its distinctive Greek character. In that narrative, the early centuries of the Egyptian Church were retrospectively interpreted as the start of a continuous development of what was to become the Coptic Church. During that period and until the Arab invasion of Egypt in the seventh century, the Byzantine emperors repeatedly deposed and exiled native Egyptian non-Chalcedonian patriarchs of Alexandria, and imposed pro-Chalcedonian ones, most of whom were non-Egyptian. This was never appreciated locally in Egypt, affording proof that the Chalcedonians were mere pawns of the emperor. Over the years, because of what they had construed as persecution of the imperial authorities, the Egyptians hardened their position and rejected all conciliatory efforts that fell short of a full condemnation of the Council of Chalcedon. This position coincided with the rise in the public visibility of the Coptic language in several areas of the Egyptians' daily life. For instance, from the year 575 A.D. onward, the bishops appointed by Damian of Alexandria substituted Greek for Coptic to write their theological commentaries, sermons and homilies. It is during that period that the work History of the Church, written in Coptic and later known as History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria, began to take form. However, the use of the Coptic language in the sixth and seventh centuries was not restricted to religious compositions, but rather expanded to encompass private and secular official communication, such as legal documentary practice.

Sound Christological theology became the cornerstone of Coptic identity in the post-Chalcedonian period and later under the Arab Muslim rule. Copts viewed their Church as one with direct doctrinal continuity with such Egyptian patristic giants as Athanasius of Alexandria and Cyril of Alexandria, both of whom were Popes of the Church of Alexandria, and whose theology was the foundation of worldwide orthodox Christian belief. As the Copts always remember, the first time that a controversy involving the entirety of the Roman Empire broke out, namely Arianism, Athanasius did not hesitate to oppose the emperors because he realized they were wrong, paying for it by being exiled three different times, and was only able to return because later emperors realized that he was right. Nonetheless, the emperors that came after Chalcedon insisted on supporting a doctrine that was at odds with the teachings of Cyril. The Copts and their patriarchs remained loyal to their Egyptian predecessors. The acceptability and righteous of doctrine were measured against Cyril's uncontested and non-negotiable definition of the nature of Christ, and the theology of the Alexandrian patriarchs remain until today the yardstick of proper belief for the Copts, whose Coptic Orthodox Church could legitimately claim to be the most authorized interpreter.

Another important aspect of the Coptic community's self-perception was its ethnic and religious continuity with the community that produced the many local Egyptian martyrs. A vast number of hagiographies for these martyrs were written, insisting on the Egyptian origin of their main characters and on the foreign Roman origin of their persecutors. This martyristic character of the Coptic identity became so strong that the Copts redated the first year of their Egyptian calendar to the year 284 A.D., the year Diocletian became Roman Emperor, whose reign was marked by tortures and mass executions of Egyptian Christians. Ever since, the Coptic year has come to be identified by the abbreviation A.M. (for Anno Martyrum or "in the Year of the Martyrs"). Egypt's many martyrs provided the foundational sacrifice for the Egyptian church, and their indigenous identity provided its legitimacy. The blood of these Christian martyrs and their dense network of shrines across the country provided for the Copts a narrative of the sanctification of the Egyptian landscape, giving the country an especially holy character. Undoubtedly for the Copts, the Flight into Egypt by the Holy Family provided the ultimate sanctification for Egypt, making the country an extension of the holy lands trod by Jesus Christ. According to the Coptic Synaxarium, a young Egyptian man called Eudaimon recognized Jesus as the promised Messiah during the Holy Family's short stay in the country, and was killed for saying so. Thus, the first Christian martyr was an Egyptian, further justifying the identity of the Coptic Orthodox Church as the Church of the Martyrs, and linking it to the very time of Jesus Christ.

Arab Muslim Invasion of Egypt

The Hanging Church, one of Cairo's most famous Coptic churches

Tunic ornament, wool, tapestry weave from the 10th century, now part the California Academy of Sciences collections

The rule of Byzantium in Egypt was briefly interrupted from 618 A.D. to 629 A.D. by the Persian invasion of Egypt. The Persians persecuted the Egyptians and committed many massacres, most notably in Alexandria and Enaton. The result was disappearance of the Egyptian highest elites, loss of leadership and resources, and a general weakening of the country that left the Egyptians unable to repel the Arab Muslim army that invaded Egypt in 641 A.D. The Arabs who invaded Egypt numbered only a few thousands, and the invading army included units from various Arab tribes, especially from Yemen. On the way to Egypt through northern Sinai and along the Mediterranean coast, numerous bedouins from Sinai and the Eastern Desert, Nabataeans, as well as bandits and vagabonds joined the foray. In total, the invaders numbered between twelve and fifteen thousand men.

The Copts viewed the Arab Muslim invasion and occupation of Egypt as a punishment from God against the Byzantines. Thus, for the Coptic bishop John of Nikiû who was contemporary of the Arab invasion of Egypt, the Muslims were sent by God to punish the rulers for their erroneous Chalcedonian doctrine, which ultimately cost the Roman Empire its eastern provinces in Egypt and the Levant. Byzantine officials in Middle Egypt were nonetheless accused by the Egyptians of providing assistance to the Muslim army in its invasion of the country. Later that year, a treaty concluded between the Byzantine prefect of Egypt Cyrus of Alexandria and between the leader of the Arab army Amr ibn al-As surrendered the city of Alexandria to the Arabs. The Arab invaders treated the native Egyptian Copts harshly, destroying the walls of Alexandria and burning many of its churches with fire. During the early years of the Rashidun Caliphate, the Egyptians were exploited by the Arabs for money due to the rich tax base and the wealth of the country's resources, for labor due to the large population with expertise in shipbuilding and irrigation, and for produce due to the high fertility of the Nile Valley and Delta. The first concern of the Arab conquerors was resource extraction from the Copts, and taxation was particularly heavy. Thus, one of the first things they did was to carry a census of the population, and subsequently use the human resources in a way that would ensure maximum control and wealth extraction.

By the early eighth century, Copts were being requisitioned for forced labor projects in Egypt and beyond, such as ships of the war fleet and imperial building projects like palaces and mosques in Fustat, Damascus and Jerusalem. Every Egyptian village was required by the Arabs to hand over a given number of individuals every year to provide forced labor and conscription, which weighed heavily on rural Egypt, and may have hit the country particularly heavily because its population had always been higher than that of other provinces. The fleet was the most dreaded of all, as it was unlikely that those conscripted would ever return to their villages. To escape forced conscription, persecution and heavy taxation, particularly the Jizya taxation levied only on non-Muslims according to Islamic Sahria law, Egyptians gradually began to convert to Islam. That taxation was demanded in gold, so that the Arab soldiers taking parts in naval raids in the Mediterranean could be paid in advance. Copts who converted to Islam became known as Mawali, and eventually simply as Muslims. Thus, the term Copt gradually changed meaning over time to eventually designate only those Egyptians who kept their Christian faith. Copts who chose to remain Christian tried to avoid forced conscription by buying out the requisitioned workers with a sum of money. The burden of taxation left many Copts in rural areas unable to meet their obligations. Oppressive taxation resulted in many revolts by the Copts against the Arab occupiers, the most famous of which were the Bashmurian revolts between 720 A.D. and 832 A.D. Another reaction to the heavy taxation was for poor Christian Copts to either borrow money from richer members of their communities, or to altogether flee their lands and escape to other parts of Egypt. The administrators were ordered to track down fugitives and the phenomenon became so difficult to control by the early eighth century that a system was devised of fines for those harboring fugitives and rewards for those turning them in, as well as restrictions on free movement outside one's home district. Solidarity networks functioned within and between villages to support these fugitives, which undoubtedly reinforced the Coptic identity in rural Egypt.

Under the Arab Muslim rule, the Coptic Orthodox Church was the most successful of all Christian denominations in Egypt in convincing the conquerors of its legitimacy, by arguing for its essentially native, and therefore solely legitimate, nature as opposed to that of the other groups, described as foreign and intrusive. By the second half of the seventh century, the non-Chalcedonian Coptic Church had a network of bishops that provided the best territorial coverage of the country, and commanded the loyalty of most of the local monasteries. This network connected the Coptic Church to the rural population in the Valley in a way no other group could achieve, and served to strengthen the Coptic identity of the Egyptians even in remote villages. A rival Chalcedonian patriarch appointed by the Byzantine emperor remained in Alexandria. However, these Chalcedonians were viewed by the Copts as usurpers who had obtained their positions through external support of the Byzantine emperors. That imperial support was construed by the Copts as theologically misguided foreign meddling, which used the prerogative of the imperial office to impose on the Egyptians a version of Christian dogma that was wrong. On the other hand, the native Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Church came to be viewed by Egyptians as one with institutional continuity since the establishment of Christianity in Egypt by Saint Mark, and the non-Chalcedonian see of Alexandria was seen to form a long direct line that obtained its legitimacy from sound theological beliefs and internal Egyptian consensus. Texts and manuscripts from the seventh to ninth century underpin the formation of a distinct Egyptian Christian identity, separate from that of the rest of the Christian world, and predicated on the indigenous character of the Coptic Orthodox Church and the community it represented. For instance, in his discussions with the Arab invader of Egypt, Amr ibn al-As, Pope Benjamin I of Alexandria is shown to be speaking for the entire population of Egypt. The monastic hinterland of Alexandria remained the intellectual and theological powerhouse of the Coptic Orthodox Church. However, because of the need to be in proximity to the newly founded capital in order to fully participate in the life of the Caliphate's upper social stratum, Pope Cyril II of Alexandria ultimately moved the seat of the patriarchate to the Hanging Church in Cairo in the late eleventh century.

Under Islamic rule, Coptic identity continued to be defined against the backdrop of sound theology and Christology, in contrast to those of the Chalcedonians. However, with the presence of non-natives in the country, Coptic identity also began to stress the native Egyptian character of the Copts. As Muslims, mainly Egyptian converts and less commonly Arabs, slowly started settling in the countryside, they provided an other against whom this identity became better defined. The Copts' Egyptian Christian identity was thus formulated. It was then with the spread of Arabic beyond the big cities that the Egyptian Church became known as "Coptic" and that native Egyptian Christians became known as "Copts", a semantic shift that occurred in the eighth and ninth centuries. Nonetheless, in their own native Coptic language, Copts continue to refer to themselves today as ⲛⲓⲣⲉⲙⲛ̀ⲭⲏⲙⲓ (the Egyptians), and to their Church as Ϯⲉⲕ̀ⲕⲗⲏⲥⲓⲁ ⲛ̀ⲣⲉⲙⲛ̀ⲭⲏⲙⲓ ⲛ̀ⲟⲣⲑⲟⲇⲟⲝⲟⲥ (the Egyptian Orthodox Church).

Coptic converts to Islam were lured to the new religion by the prospect of paying less taxes, since they would no longer have to pay the Jizya taxation levied only on non-Muslims according to Islamic Sahria law. The History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria recounts the history of fiscal oppression imposed by the caliphate against Copts as driving conversions from Christianity to Islam. These converts changed their names to Muslim ones, or simply used the arabized versions of their Egyptian names while giving Muslim names to their children. Early converts had to attach themselves to Arab Muslim patrons as Mawali. While they had to adopt Arabic as their main language, they remained fluent in Coptic, thus creating a growing bilingual group among Egyptian Muslims. Nevertheless, Egypt remained a majority Christian country well into the Middle Ages. According to al-Maqdisi, in the 10th century, Christians were still the overwhelming majority in the Nile Valley. Many cities in Upper Egypt had no Muslim communities at all during that time.

Monastery of Saint Anthony in the eastern Desert

Coptic monasticism played a crucial role in the preservation of Coptic identity in Egypt. Over time, monasteries had become central to Christianity everywhere, but nowhere as much as among Christians in Muslim-held lands, since they took on an increasing importance in the life of their surrounding Christian communities. As an institution, monasticism claimed Egyptian origin since its founder, Anthony the Great, was an Egyptian whose native language was Coptic. Egyptian monasteries not only collected and copid older works, but also continued to produce new literature in Coptic, thus creating a living and ever-evolving communal memory rooted in the country's Christian past. Most of the monastic biographies in Coptic that are preserved today date from the fourth to the seventh centuries A.D. A strong anti-Chalcedonian polemic continued to be expressed in monastic texts well into the eighth or ninth centuries, and the last really polemical text in Coptic is the Life of Samuel of Qalamun. The prestige of monasteries in Egypt grew over time, and the importance of monastic background proved especially relevant during the Fatimid Caliphate, where ecclesiastical elites were much closer to circles of power. These monastic elites played a significant role in enhancing the status of monasteries by providing institutional, financial and intellectual support.

Historical map of the distribution of Coptic dialects

Coptic continued to flourish as a literary and private language in Egypt in the seventh and eighth centuries A.D. However, by the tenth century and certainly as a result of the Arabization of the government's Divans by the Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan and his son al-Walid I earlier in the eighth century, Copts became increasingly bilingual, speaking both Coptic and Arabic. Forced labor of native Egyptians who were sent to building sites in Fustat, Damascus or Jerusalem, or at shipyards were the orders were given by Arabic-speaking commanders, were other reasons why Copts had to learn Arabic in addition to their native Coptic language. The arabization of the administrative documents accelerated under the Abbasids. Local Coptic elites with ambitions of rising in the administrative structure had to learn Arabic because of its exclusive use by the chancery, and Arabic became a means of upward social mobility. Throughout the eighth century, private transaction documents were invariably drafted in Coptic, but these documents became increasingly written in Arabic in the ninth century. By the tenth century, the renowned Coptic bishop of Hermopolis, Severus ibn al-Muqaffa, had sufficiently mastered the language of the invaders that he was already debating theology and participating in court debates in Fustat using Arabic. It is noteworthy however that these Copts still spoke Coptic as their first language and only mastered Arabic during their years in the administration. Christian Copts from well-to-do families with a good education continued to serve in the country's administration until the Fatimid period and beyond. The Coptic Christian Isa ibn Nasturus ibn Surus served as vizier of the Fatimid Caliphate in 993–996 under al-Aziz Billah before being executed by the Caliph al-Hakim in 1000 A.D. The latest known documentary texts in Coptic date from the eleventh century. A slow arabization of the country's tongue took place that by the end of the Fatimid period (1171 A.D.), Arabic was the only language in common use, even though Coptic remained the local vernacular of native Egyptians, particularly in the Valley of the Nile. The majority of the population remained Christian during that time, particularly in Middle and Upper Egypt. The adoption of Arabic as a second official language by the Coptic Church in the 12th century during the papacy of Pope Gabriel II of Alexandria was a turning point in the arabization of Egypt. Since that time, all Coptic churches have been reading the Gospel and other sermons first in Coptic and then in Arabic, since many Copts began losing their native tongue in favor for Arabic during that period. Henceforth, the liturgy itself remained in Coptic, but historical, hagiographical and theological works came to be composed in Arabic, and many older works were translated. The systematic translation of Coptic religious texts into Arabic was carried out between the mid-eleventh and the late thirteenth century, thus transferring into the new language almost the entire textual tradition of the Egyptian church. Coptic monks did not view the translation movement in a positive light, and criticized the adoption of Arabic as a form of assimilation to the Muslims. It was further castigated because it entailed the loss of communal memory and of the specifically Christian understanding of God. The most notable of such works against the arabization of Egypt and the Coptic Church is the Apocalypse of Samuel of Kalamoun, ascribed to the famous Coptic saint Samuel the Confessor who lived in the seventh century, although it may have been authored at a much later date. Despite the resistance, Gabriel II's approach was ultimately successful and Arabic eventually became the language of all ecclesiastical institutions, including the monasteries. It is difficult to assess whether the Church was acting in response to the arabization of the population, or whether it led the way by influencing the language choices of local communities in Egypt.

Middle Ages

Studies of the overall distributions of religious groups over the long term show that, from the Middle Ages to the 20th century, conversions of Copts from Christianity to Islam occurred mainly among the least prosperous. Copts of higher status hardly needed conversion for their advancement. By remaining within their own community, they kept control over it, which gave them more negotiating power with the rulers. It was for the weaker portion of the Christian population of Egypt that conversion to Islam represented a real progression, not only financially but also in terms of independence.

Egyptian Liberal Age

Main article: Liberalism in Egypt

St. Mark Coptic Cathedral in Alexandria

Egypt's struggle for independence from both the Ottoman Empire and Britain was marked by secular Egyptian nationalism, also referred to as Pharaonism. When the Egyptian nationalist leader Saad Zaghlul met the Arab delegates at Versailles in 1918, he insisted that their struggles for statehood were not connected, stressing that the problem of Egypt was an Egyptian problem and not an Arab one. Egyptian nationalism rose to prominence in the 1920s and 1930s. It looked to Egypt's pre-Islamic past and argued that Egypt was part of a larger Mediterranean civilization. This ideology stressed the role of the Nile River and the Mediterranean Sea. It became the dominant mode of expression of Egyptian anti-colonial activists of the pre- and inter-war periods. There was no place for an Arab component in the Egyptian personality at that time, and Egyptians had no Arab orientation as they saw themselves as Egyptians regardless of religion. Foreigners visiting Egypt noted that Egyptians did not possess any Arab sentiment in the first half of the 20th century. As one Arab nationalist of the time put it "Egyptians did not accept that Egypt was a part of the Arab lands, and would not acknowledge that the Egyptian people were part of the Arab nation." Many of the champions of Egyptian twentieth century liberalism were Copts, such as Salama Moussa and Makram Ebeid.

Rise of Arab nationalism

Arab nationalism began to gain grounds in Egypt in the 1940s following efforts by Syrian, Palestinian and Lebanese intellectuals. Nevertheless, by the end of the 1940s and even after the establishment of the Arab League, historian H. S. Deighton was still writing that "Egyptians are not Arabs, and both they and the Arabs are aware of this fact".

It was not until the Nasser era starting in the 1950s – more than a decade later – that Arab nationalism, and by extension Arab socialism, became a state policy imposed on the Egyptians by the new dictatorship. Under Nasser, Egypt united with Syria to form the United Arab Republic in 1958, then became known as the Arab Republic of Egypt in 1961. The Egyptians' attachment to Arabism, however, was particularly questioned after the 1967 Six-Day War. Nasser's successor Sadat, both through public policy and his peace initiative with Israel, revived an uncontested Egyptian orientation, unequivocally asserting that only Egypt and Egyptians were his responsibility. The terms "Arab", "Arabism" and "Arab unity", save for the new official name, became conspicuously absent. (See also Egyptian Liberal age and Egyptian Republic.)

Copts and Arab identity

Coptic Orthodox Cross with traditional Coptic script reading: 'Jesus Christ, the Son of God'

While some non-Coptic authors claim that Copts in Egypt have an Arab identity while Copts in the West tend to identify as "non-Arab", other non-Coptic scholars disagree, stating that "Copts are not Arabs" and that they predate the Arabs' arrival to Egypt

They viewed Arabs as invaders and foreigners, and glorified the struggles of their ancestors against the Arab invaders between the 7th and the 9th centuries AD. Indubitably, the struggle against these foreign ideologies centered around the Coptic language:

The Coptic language provides a Copt with an identity that spells out an impressive commentary upon the character of such person. It exemplifies in him an unyielding spirit that was tried and came out victorious. A spirit that had to endure endless attempts by those that ruled Egypt for the past 2300 years to replace such language with that of their own. If such was achieved then they can subject the Copts to cultural and religious slavery that would forever made them subservient to such foreign rulers. It was attempted first by the Greeks, through their Hellenizing approach. Then it was continued along the same principles by the successive Arab and Muslim dynasties that ruled Egypt since the 7th century AD. The significance of such character can also inspire the Coptic youth to fight off the many harmful pressures, whether in spirit or in body, that are facing them in this turbulent Society of ours.

In addition, some Copts resisted Arab nationalism by stressing their pre-Arab identity. They saw themselves as the direct descendants of the ancient Egyptians, and their language as a bridge linking the Copts to their Ancient Egyptian roots and their civilization that span over 6,000 years.

The strongest statement regarding Coptic identity came in 2008 from a prominent Coptic bishop, namely Bishop Thomas of Cusae and Meir, who gave the following speech at the Hudson Institute:

What makes a person change the identity of his own nation and shift the focus of his identity from Egypt to become "the Arabs", even though ethnically he/she is the same person? The Copts have been always focused on Egypt; it's our identity, it's our nation, it's our land, it's our language, it's our culture. But when some of the Egyptians converted to Islam, their focus changed away from looking to their own [language and culture]. They started to look to the Arabians, and Arabia became their main focus. So the focus here has changed and they would no longer be called "Copts". If you come to a Coptic person and tell him that he's an Arab, that's offensive. We are not Arabs, we are Egyptians. I am very happy to be an Egyptian and I would not accept being "Arab" because ethnically I am not. I speak Arabic. Politically now, I am part of a country that was Arabized and politically I belong to an Arabic country but that doesn't make a person Arab. If a person believes he is an Arab, his main focus is the pan-Arab area, and he no longer belongs to the Egyptian nation. You are either in or out; either you belong or you don't. And this is a big dilemma that is happening for the Copts who kept their Christianity, or rather their identity as Egyptians with their own culture, and who are trying to keep the language, the music, and the calendar of the Copts. That means that the culture of Ancient Egypt is still carried on. A process of Arabization has been ongoing in this country for many centuries, since the 7th century. At the same time Islamization as well is a dilemma that started and is still carrying a lot of the problems. [...] So when we hear the word "Copt", that doesn't only mean "Christian", it means "Egyptian".

What makes an Egyptian become a Copt, and an Egyptian not become a Copt? Simply, this is the shift that has happened in Egypt since the Arab invasion of Egypt. Today when you look at a Copt, you don't see only a Christian, but you see an Egyptian who is trying to keep his identity versus another imported identity that is working on him. And that means if these two processes are still actively working till now, it has never stopped because Egypt has not yet in its own mind become completely Islamized or Arabized. That means the process [of Arabization] is still ongoing... You can't study the Coptic language, the native language of the land, in any public school in Egypt. That's not allowed, although we can teach in our public schools any other language. You have a lot of schools that teach English, French, German, Spanish and Greek, but never Coptic. Why? Because that clashes with the process of Arabization. And this is a very dangerous attitude. The cultural heritage of Egypt has been taken away. [Thus], the Copts suddenly felt that they have a responsibility to carry on their own culture and continue it and to fight for it. Yes, we are still fighting very much for our strong heritage of Egypt because we love our heritage and we want to keep it. And that means that if you try to teach your language in a public school, that would not be the right way to do it, so that means that the Church will carry the responsibility to take in this heritage and work with it, keeping it in a very good nursery till the time would come when openness and good thinking would occur, when this country will come back to its own roots and lift it up. But, until then we have to keep it in a nursery, in a church. We don't want to keep it in, we don't want to isolate it, but we cannot throw it away so nobody will take care of it. That's why we keep it. This is not withdrawal. We could say that this is keeping the heritage in a nursery till the time comes when it will be open and serve the entire Egyptian community. So the word "Copt" here is not only religious, but it has cultural import.

Bishop Thomas' words gained widespread approval within the Coptic community. One other Coptic bishop, namely Bishop Picenti of Helwan and Massarah commented on the issue saying:

If one reconsiders Bishop Thomas' words, they can discover that he was not wrong. He said that Copts of Egypt are not of Arab origin but rather of Pharaonic origin, and this is correct because it is the truth and history. We are Coptic Egyptians. We are Pharaonic Copts. Coptic meaning ancient Egyptian who then converted to Christianity. Copt, is essentially another term for Coptic Christians.

Other prominent Coptic figures who supported Bishop Thomas' statement included the Coptic writer Magdy Khalil who wrote in el-Dostoor newspaper:

We [the Copts] are Egyptians, and we are not Arabs, with all due respect to the Arabs. We may live in some sort of cultural Arabism and we may speak Arabic, but we are not Arabs. This is a historical fact, whether some people like it or not. Copts both within Egypt and in the diaspora are insulted and accused because they insist on holding strongly to and taking pride in their national Egyptian identity, rather than having another identity that crosses the borders [of Egypt]. The Copts focus their identity on Egypt's geographical borders, which are deeply rooted in history.

See also

• Copts
• Egyptians
• Christianity in Egypt
• Coptic nationalism
• Pharaonism
• Egyptian nationalism