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[[St Mark]], a disciple of [[Apostle Peter|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.
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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.
Since the [[schism]] occurring as a result of the political and [[Christology|Christological]] controversies at the [[Fourth Ecumenical Council|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 '''[[Church of Alexandria (Coptic)|Coptic Orthodox Church]]''' (i.e., [[Oriental Orthodox|non-Chalcedonian]]).