Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria

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The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria and All Africa is the Church of the followers of the Council of Chalcedon on the territory of the Ancient Church Patriarchate of Alexandria .

Patriarch Theodoros II has been its head since October 2004 . In March 2017 he ordained six women as deacons in the Congo .

The approximately 250,000 believers (mostly Greeks in the diaspora , around 10,000 Christian Arabs and 80,000 Africans) are organized in 18 metropolitan dioceses and six dioceses, mainly in Egypt and sub-Saharan Africa.

The evangelist Mark is regarded by the faithful as the founder of the patriarchate and therefore as the first patriarch. Until the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD there was a generally recognized patriarchate of Alexandria. It followed the Patriarchate of Rome and Constantinople in third place. Subsequently, the separate churches of today's Greek Orthodox Patriarchate and the Alexandrian Patriarchate of the Coptic Church in Egypt and, in the 19th century, that of the Catholic Coptic Church emerged. All attempts by the rulers of Constantinople to overcome the schism failed.

From the 7th century onwards, the situation of the Chalcedonian Patriarchate of Alexandria became more difficult. Its few communities had to come to terms with the new Islamic rulers, like the much more numerous Copts.

From 1874 to 1899, the number of Greek Orthodox in Egypt rose from 8,000 to nearly 40,000 due to immigrants from the Greek islands and the mainland. As a result, the Greek Orthodox Church in Egypt formed a minority in two ways, religiously and ethnically. After the great exodus of Greece in the last few decades, fewer than 5,000 of the previous 250,000 Hellenes remained in the country.

See also

literature

  • Chrysostomos Papadopoulos: ΄Iστορία της ̓Eκκλησίας ̓Aλεξανδρείας (Historia tēs Ekklēsias Alexandreias, 62-1934). Patriarchikon Typographeion, Alexandria 1935; LCCN  77-517160 .
  • Theodoros Demetrios Moschonas: The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria . In: Kyrios NF 1 (1960/61), pp. 129-139; ISSN  0023-6128 .
  • Stanley H. Skreslet: The Greeks in Medieval Islamic Egypt. A Melkite Dhimmi Community under the Patriarch of Alexandria (640/1095) , dissertation Yale University 1988.
  • Alexander Kitroeff: The Greeks in Egypt 1919-1937. Ethnicity and class . London: Ithaca for the Middle East Center, St Antony's College, Oxford, 1989, ISBN 0863721095
  • Iōannēs M. Chatzēphōtēs: Aλεξάνδρεια. Oι δύο αιώνες του Nεώτερου Eλληνισμου, 19ος / 20ος αι . Ekdoseis A. Basta-D. Plessa, Athens 1991, ISBN 9608519705

Web links

Commons : Patriarchate of Alexandria  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christ in the Present (CiG) No. 52/2017, p. 570 "March"