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Alexandria

Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria (Coptic line) · c. 42–49 by tradition (Mark the Evangelist)

Founded by Mark the Evangelist, Alexandria led the church's intellectual life — the catechetical school of Pantaenus, Clement and Origen, then Athanasius' defense of Nicaea. After Chalcedon (451) the church of Egypt divided over the council; from 536 two rival successions stand, and this line follows the Coptic popes.

Continues today as the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria — Pope Tawadros II is №118 of the traditional count.

The bishops

69 holders in the record.

Of the 68 links in this chain, 21 rest on a recorded succession; 43 are inferred from the numbering — the register numbers the two holders consecutively and no source says one followed the other; 4 are named by no register at all: nothing joins those two rows. Each holder below says which it is.

Glosses

  • The count that still runs The Coptic Orthodox Church numbers its patriarchs from Mark the Evangelist without a break, and the count has not stopped: Tawadros II, enthroned in 2012, is the 118th. This dataset stops at the Great Schism, so it…
  • The five sees Justinian's law speaks of five patriarchates — Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem — in that order, and the arrangement is called the pentarchy. It was never quite the fact it was legislated as…
  • Two patriarchs of Alexandria This site carries two Alexandrian lines and they are one line until 451. Dioscorus was deposed at Chalcedon; the imperial church installed Proterius in his place, and the Egyptian majority went on counting from…
  • Why Easter moves Nicaea ruled in 325 that the whole church keep Easter on one Sunday and stop taking its date from the Jewish calendar — but it fixed no arithmetic, and someone had to compute, every year and in advance, the Sunday…

Events

Texts

Feasts

List of Coptic Popes of Alexandria · the communion today