Coptic Orthodox Pope of Alexandria

The Coptic Orthodox Pope of Alexandria leads the Coptic Orthodox Church, the largest Christian body in Egypt and one of the oldest organized churches in the world. Tradition holds that Mark the Evangelist, author of the Gospel of Mark, founded the church at Alexandria around 42 CE and served as its first bishop, making the see one of the earliest to claim direct apostolic foundation alongside Rome, Antioch and Jerusalem. Alexandria became a major center of early Christian theology and scholarship, home to figures such as Origen and Athanasius, whose defense of the doctrine that Christ is fully divine against Arian teaching shaped the Nicene Creed adopted in 325 CE.

The Coptic Church separated from the wider body of Chalcedonian Christianity, which includes both the later Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, after rejecting the christological formula adopted at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 CE; Coptic and other Oriental Orthodox churches hold a distinct, non-Chalcedonian formula regarding the union of Christ's divine and human natures. Following the Arab conquest of Egypt in 641 CE, the Coptic Church continued as a minority Christian community within a Muslim-majority Egypt, a position it has occupied for nearly fourteen centuries.

The selection of a Coptic Orthodox Pope combines nomination, narrowing and a final element of chance intended to remove ordinary human politics from the last stage of the decision. A nominating process draws up a list of eligible bishops and monks meeting specific qualifications, which church electors, including clergy, bishops and lay representatives, narrow through successive rounds of voting to a small number of finalists, traditionally three. From that shortlist, a blindfolded child draws one name from a container placed on the altar during a liturgy, a practice known as the altar lot, understood by the church as leaving the final choice to divine providence rather than to electoral politics.

This procedure has been used, with variations, for many of the church's modern papal elections and distinguishes Coptic practice from the pure synodal election used at Constantinople and Moscow or the closed conclave used in Rome. Coptic popes have historically also served as a focal point for the Coptic community's relationship with the Egyptian state, a role that gained particular visibility in the twentieth century as the church navigated periods of both accommodation and tension with Egypt's government over the treatment of its Christian minority.