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A common religious scene in Egypt: a mosque next to a church. Egypt hosts two major religious institutions. Al-Azhar Mosque, founded in 970 CE by the Fatimids as the first Islamic university in Egypt and the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria established in the middle of the 1st century by Saint Mark. [3]
Islam is the dominant religion in Egypt, with approximately 90% of Egyptians identifying as Muslims. [1] The majority of Egyptian Muslims are adherents of Sunni Islam, [2] while a small minority adhere to Shia Islam. [3] Since 1980, Islam has served as Egypt's state religion. [4]
The vast majority of Egyptian Christians are Copts who belong to the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, an Oriental Orthodox Church. [2] [3] As of 2019, Copts in Egypt make up approximately 10 percent of the nation's population, [4] with an estimated population of 9.5 million (figure cited in the Wall Street Journal, 2017) [5] or 10 million (figure cited in the Associated Press, 2019). [6]
Religion in Egypt consists of Islam (mostly Sunni Muslim) 80–90%, Coptic Christians 10–20% and other Christians 1%. [127] [128] [56] As Egypt has modernized with new forms of media and the Egyptian press was liberalized in the 2000s, Coptic Christianity has become a main topic of religious controversy. [129]
The number of Catholics (less than 200,000) in Egypt makes up much less than 1% of the total Egyptian population, which is roughly 100 million people. Many of Egypt's Latin Catholics are of Italian or Maltese descent, while Egypt's Melkite Greek Catholics and Maronite Catholics are predominantly of Syro-Lebanese descent.
Today it has campuses in Alexandria and Cairo, and in various dioceses throughout Egypt, as well as outside Egypt. It has campuses in New Jersey, Los Angeles, Sydney, Melbourne, and London, where potential clergymen and other qualified men and women study many subjects, including theology, church history, missionary studies, and the Coptic ...
Americans have been disaffiliating from organized religion over the past few decades. About 63% of Americans are Christian, according to the Pew Research Center, down from 90% in the early 1990s.
An Egyptian court on February 25, 2016, convicted four Coptic Christian teenagers for contempt of Islam, after they appeared in a video mocking Muslim prayers. [53] Nearly all Egyptian Christians today are Copts, adherents of either the Coptic Orthodox Church or other Coptic churches.