The gospel-writer known as Mark likely preached in the seaside city of Alexandria, Egypt, less than two decades after Jesus’ resurrection. Two thousand years later, an estimated one percent of Egypt’s population identifies as Protestant Christians.
A lot has happened in between.
Empires have risen and fallen. Heretics have challenged the Christian faith. False religions have flourished. But despite the challenges, even as Christianity all but vanished from surrounding nations, the church in Egypt never disappeared.
We have not been abandoned.
Today, plenty of challenges remain, and converting to Christianity from Islam remains especially difficult. But Alexandrian believers also remain expectantly hopeful.
“I’m so encouraged because I feel the Lord has visited us,” says church leader Sherif Fahim. “We have not been abandoned.”
From Gospel to Heresy
Sherif Fahim knows Alexandria firsthand. He was born in the famous port city, and he teaches at Alexandria School of Theology, a theological seminary situated in a city famous for learning: Alexandria is renowned for its ancient philosophers and for a library that was once considered the intellectual center of the ancient world.
In the New Testament era, Egyptians were among the many visitors to Jerusalem who heard the Apostle Peter preach the gospel at Pentecost (Acts 2:10). Later, in Acts 18, we meet Apollos, a Jewish believer in Christ and a native of Alexandria. Apollos becomes a key leader in the burgeoning New Testament church.
But as the church continued to spread across the ancient world, false teachers spread heretical doctrine. By 325 A.D., one of the most infamous heresies in the history of the church had originated in Alexandria itself.
From Alexandria to Nicaea
A church leader named Arius claimed that Jesus did not eternally exist but was made by God. If this was true, it would mean Jesus was not truly God—a claim that would destroy the Christian faith.
At the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D., bishops from around the world responded, and one of Arius’ strongest theological opponents was someone he knew well: the bishop of Alexandria. (The bishop’s assistant, an Alexandrian deacon named Athanasius, would go on to become a church father himself, and one of the most prominent defenders of Trinitarian theology.)
In 381 A.D., the Council of Constantinople published the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. Today it’s known as the Nicene Creed—a resounding proclamation of the divinity of Christ—and one of the most widely used creeds in the history of the church.
From Conquests to Christianity
But the history of the church didn’t stop there. Other controversies were on the horizon, and an even bigger challenge loomed: the Muslim conquests of the 7th century. Islam prevailed in Egypt, and today. some 90 percent of Egyptians identify as Muslims.
About 10 percent of Egyptians identify with the Coptic Church—a branch of Christianity with similarities to Catholicism. It wasn’t until the mid-19th century that significant numbers of Protestant missionaries arrived in Egypt, and though they established a strong presence, it’s remained limited: Only about one percent of Egyptians identify as Protestant Christians.
Sherif Fahim is one of many Egyptians who grew up in the Coptic Church and expected to remain there. But that all changed when an uncle (the only Protestant in Fahim’s family) invited Fahim to a youth conference, where Fahim would understand for the first time something he’d heard all his life.
From Head to Heart
“If you asked me if I knew the facts of the gospel, the answer would be yes,” Fahim remembers. He says most Copts would know the basic facts of the Christian story: Jesus died on the cross and rose again on the third day. But for Fahim, the gospel was mostly history—something that had happened in the past.
What he heard at the conference as a university student was something different: The gospel had profound implications for his life now, and for eternity. It wasn’t about doing enough good works to be saved. It was about trusting Christ’s saving work for a salvation that sinners could never earn. And it was about living for Christ in response.
“By God’s grace, I was converted in that conference during the preaching” Fahim says. “I was born again—and then my whole life changed, upside down.”
Like most Egyptians, Fahim had never even visited a Protestant church. But even more would change for him. After beginning a career as an engineer, Fahim eventually accepted an administrative position at a new Anglican seminary called Alexandria School of Theology. By the end of that first year, he was enrolled himself.
That began a life of ministry that continues to this day. Fahim teaches at the seminary and serves as a teaching elder at his local Presbyterian church. It’s a calling that allows him to work in an area he sees as the biggest need for Protestant churches in Egypt: “healthy churches and teachers, faithful teachers, faithful preachers of the Word.”
Like in many other places around the world, liberalism and theological error has crept into the Protestant church in Egypt. “It’s very weak,” Fahim says. But it’s also encouraging to see theological hunger among Egyptian believers who get a taste of sound teaching.
From Retreat to Reformation
Fahim helps lead a ministry called “El-Soora” that focuses on publishing and conferences rooted in sound, biblical teaching. Don Carson spoke at the ministry’s first big event ten years ago, and today the organization is publishing works by Egyptian church leaders in Arabic.
Fahim says he’s also seeing Egyptians coming to faith in Christ, often after a lifetime of growing up in church. People from the majority religion are coming to the Lord as well, though usually in smaller numbers, and in a much quieter way. That’s partly because it comes with a cost: People can lose their jobs, their families, even their safety in some cases.
Still, Fahim is heartened to see God working, especially in churches coming alive to biblical truth in new ways. “If you had asked me 20 years ago if reformation was coming to Egypt, I would have laughed,” he says. “But now I see young people discerning good teaching from bad, I see they’re hungry for exegetical teaching, they love the Word.”
“The Lord is doing something,” he says. “This is very encouraging.”
Jamie Dean is the Lead Writer for Radical. She has 20 years of experience in journalism and on-the-ground reporting.
