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Church of Alexandria

Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria and All Africa
The Church of Alexandria
Founder(s) Apostle Mark
Autocephaly/Autonomy declared Traditional
Autocephaly/Autonomy recognized Traditional
Current primate Pope Theodoros II
Headquarters Alexandria, Egypt
Primary territory Africa
Possessions abroad none
Liturgical language(s) Greek, Arab, French, English, local languages
Musical tradition Byzantine Chant
Calendar Revised Julian
Population estimate 250,000
Official website Church of Alexandria

The Church of Alexandria is one of the autocephalous Orthodox Churches. Its primate is the Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa, the successor to the Apostle Mark the Evangelist, who founded the Church of Alexandria in the 1st century. It is one of the five ancient patriarchates of the early Church, called the Pentarchy.

History

When Alexander the Great conquered Egypt about 332-331 BC he established the city of Alexandria, named after him, from which his Greek-speaking successors, the Ptolemy dynasty, ruled Egypt. Alexandria also had many Greek-speaking Jewish inhabitants, and it was here that the Old Testament scriptures were translated into Greek, the Septuagint version. During the first century BC the city, and Egypt generally passed under Roman rule.

St Mark, a disciple of St Peter evangelised Egypt in the middle of the first century. He probably arrived about AD 40, and met a martyr's death around AD 63. Little is known of the early history of the Church in Alexandria and Egypt, beyond a bare list of names of bishops. By the end of the second century, however, the church had begun to spread among the indigenous population, and the Scriptures and Liturgical texts were being translated into local languages.

Since the schism occurring as a result of the political and Christological controversies at the Council of Chalcedon (451 A.D.), the portion of the Church of Alexandria loyal to Chalcedonian Christology has liturgically been Greek-speaking, the majority of its native (i.e., Coptic) population and their modern descendents becoming a part of the Coptic Orthodox Church (i.e., non-Chalcedonian).

The Church today

In recent years, a considerable missionary effort was enacted by Pope Petros VII. During his seven years as patriarch (1997-2004), he worked tirelessly to spread the Orthodox Faith in Arab nations and throughout Africa, raising up native clergy and encouraging the use of local languages in the liturgical life of the Church. Missions spread and thrived in Kenya, Uganda, Madagascar, Cameroon, and elsewhere across the African continent.

Particularly sensitive to the nature of Christian expansion into Muslim countries, His Beatitude worked to promote mutual understanding and respect between Orthodox Christians and Muslims. His efforts were ended as the result of a helicopter crash on September 11, 2004, in the Aegean Sea near Greece, killing him and several other clergy, including Bishop Nektarios of Madagascar, another bishop with a profound missionary vision.

Today, some 300,000 Orthodox Christians comprise the Patriarchate of Alexandria, the highest number since the Roman Empire. The current primate of the Church of Alexandria is His Beatitude Theodoros II, Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa.

The Episcopacy

The Holy Synod

Auxiliary Metropolitans

Diocesan Bishops

Titular Metropolitans

Titular Bishops

Retired Bishops

Holy Metropolises and Bishoprics

Bishopric Established See Jurisdiction
Metropolis of Carthage 1st c. Tunis Tunisia, Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco, Western Sahara
Metropolis of Memphis 4th c. Cairo Egypt (Cairo)
Metropolis of Pelusium 4th c. Port Said Egypt (Port Said, Dakahlia, Damietta)
Metropolis of Leontopolis 4th c. Ismailia Egypt (Ismailia, Sharqia, Suez)
Metropolis of Aksum 4th c. Addis-Abeba Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia
Metropolis of Tripoli 1866 Tripoli Libya
Metropolis of Ptolemais 1908 Minya Egypt (Giza, Minya, Sohag, Asyut, Faiyum, Qena, Beni Suef, Aswan, Luxor, Red Sea, New Valley)
Metropolis of Nubia 1908 Khartoum Sudan, South Sudan, Eritrea
Metropolis of Hermopolis 1927 Tanta Egypt (Arab-speaking communities)
Metropolis of Johannesburg 1927 Johannesburg South Africa (Gauteng, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, North West)
Metropolis of Nairobi 1958 Nairobi Kenya
Metropolis of Kinshasa 1958 Kinshasa Congo (Kinshasa, North Kivu, South Kivu, Congo Central, Kwilu, Ituri, South Ubangi, Tshopo, Maniema, Kwango, Upper Uele, Mongala, Mai-Ndombe, Equator, North Ubangi, Tshuapa, Lower Uele)
Metropolis of Cameroon 1959 Yaounde Cameroon, Chad, Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Saint Thomas and Prince
Metropolis of Zimbabwe 1964 Harare Zimbabwe, Angola, Mozambique
Metropolis of Good Hope 1968 Cape Town South Africa (KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape, Western Cape, Free State, Northern Cape), Namibia, Eswatini, Lesotho, Saint Helen, Ascension, Tristan da Cunha
Metropolis of Mwanza 1992 Mwanza Tanzania (Mwanza, Mbeya, Kagera, Tabora, Morogoro, Kigoma, Dodoma, Mara, Geita, Arusha, Kilimanjaro, Simiyu, Shinyanga, Manyara, Ruvuma, Singida, Rukwa, Iringa, Njombe, Katavi, Songwe)
Metropolis of Kampala 1994 Kampala Uganda
Metropolis of Accra 1997 Accra Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mali, Burkina Faso
Metropolis of Antananarivo 1997 Antananarivo Madagascar, Mayotte, The Comoros, The Mascarenes, Scattered Islands
Metropolis of Nigeria 1997 Lagos Nigeria, Niger, Benin, Togo
Metropolis of Irinoupolis 1999 Dar es-Salaam Tanzania (Dar es-Salaam, Tanga, Mtwara, Pwani, Lindi, West Zanzibar, North Pemba, South Pemba, North Zanzibar, South Zanzibar), Seychelles
Metropolis of Zambia 2001 Lusaka Zambia, Malawi
Metropolis of Katanga 2006 Lubumbashi Congo (Upper Katanga, Tanganyika, Upper Lomami, Lualaba)
Diocese of Mozambique 2006 Maputo Mozambique
Metropolis of Burundi 2009 Bujumbura Burundi, Rwanda
Metropolis of Botswana 2010 Gabarone Botswana
Metropolis of Brazzaville 2010 Brazzaville Congo (Brazzaville, Pointe-Noire, Buenza, Mpumbu, Niadi, Plateau, Kuvete, Likuala, Lekumu, Kwilu, Sangha, West Kuvete), Gabon
Metropolis of Guinea 2010 Conakry Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea Bissau, Gambia, Senegal, Cape Verde
Diocese of Kisumu 2015 Kisumu Kenya (Kisumu, Kakamega, Bungoma, Kisii, Homa Bay, Migori, Siaya, Busia, Nyamira, Vihiga)
Diocese of Nyeri 2015 Nyeri Kenya (Nyeri, Kiambu, Muranga, Nyandarua, Kirinyaga)
Diocese of Arusha 2016 Arusha Tanzania (Arusha, Morogoro, Dodoma, Kilimanjaro, Manyara, Singida, Iringa)
Metropolis of Kananga 2018 Kananga Congo (Kasai, Central Kasai, Eastern Kasai, Lomami, Sankuru)
Diocese of Goma 2018 Goma Congo (North Kivu, South Kivu, Maniema)
Diocese of Gulu 2018 Gulu Uganda (Eastern, Northern)
Diocese of Kisangani 2018 Kisangani Congo (Tshopo, Ituri, Upper Uele, Lower Uele)
Diocese of Malawi 2018 Malawi Malawi
Diocese of Toliara 2018 Toliara Madagascar (Atsimo-Andrefana, Upper Matsiatra, Vatovavy-Fitovinany, Atsimo-Atsinanana, Androy, Amoroni Mania, Anosy, Menabe, Ihorombe)
Diocese of Bukoba 2019 Bukoba Tanzania (Kagera)
Diocese of Eldoret 2019 Eldoret Kenya (Uasin Gishu)

See also

External links

Sources

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