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Coptic Orthodox

Grew from
Oriental Orthodox
From
451 AD
Origin
Alexandria and Egypt

The church of Egypt, which held to Cyril of Alexandria's language of one incarnate nature and did not accept the formula agreed at Chalcedon in 451. It continued under Muslim rule from the seventh century as the largest Christian community in the Middle East, which it remains.

What marks it out

Monasticism began here — Antony in the desert and Pachomius's communities are the source of the whole later monastic tradition, east and west. The calendar counts its years from 284, the accession of Diocletian, and is called the Era of the Martyrs. Coptic, the last stage of the Egyptian language, survives in the liturgy and effectively nowhere else. Fasting occupies more than half the year.

Alongside it

Also from Oriental Orthodox.

In the record

  1. 451 AD Division

    Council of Chalcedon

    Defined Christ as one person in two natures. The Coptic, Syriac and Armenian churches rejected the formula, becoming the Oriental Orthodox.

This body appears in the history but does not carry recorded doctrinal positions here, so it is absent from the comparison panels.

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