COPTIC CATHOLIC CHURCH

Eastern Catholic church of the Alexandrian rite (q.v.) in Egypt, in communion with Rome since 1741, when Athanasius, a Monophysite (acknowledging only one nature in the person of Christ) Coptic bishop, became a Roman Catholic. Two succeeding bishops remained unconsecrated because they were unable to travel to Europe and there was no Egyptian bishop to perform the ceremony. In 1893 the Franciscans in Egypt gave the Catholic Copts 10 churches. In 1895 Pope Leo XIII divided the 5,000 Catholic Copts into three dioceses directed by an administrator, who, four years later, was appointed patriarch of Alexandria, with residence in Cairo.