Our Coptic church

A brief history of the Coptic Church

The word Coptic comes from the ancient Greek name for Egypt, and the Coptic Orthodox Church is one of the oldest Christian churches in the world. Tradition holds that it was founded in Alexandria by Saint Mark the Evangelist around 43 A.D. Egypt had already welcomed the Holy Family, who fled there from King Herod when Jesus was a child.

The Church grew through centuries of faithful witness, including seasons of severe persecution that it remembers through its martyrs. In the third and fourth centuries, Saint Anthony and others in the Egyptian desert began Christian monasticism, a tradition that shaped monastic life around the world. The Church's worship preserves the Coptic language, a descendant of the language of ancient Egypt, alongside Arabic and English.

Today the Church is led by the Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of St. Mark, and its members live across Egypt and around the world. In the United States, the Diocese of the Southern United States was established in 1993 as the first Coptic Orthodox diocese in the country, under Pope Shenouda III and Bishop Youssef. The Tampa Bay community has grown with it.

Many of our values come straight from this heritage: prayer, fasting, hospitality, and care for the poor. Our patron, Saint Verena, is remembered for her quiet service to the sick and the needy.