slam occasioned many perversions from among the
Copts to that religion. On the other hand the necessity of resistance to
these tendencies and of reform from within was strongly realized.
Unfortunately, the institution of a lay council of eminent churchmen,
which has been formed for the patriarch and for every bishop in his own
diocese, has led to prolonged struggles and on one occasion to a serious
crisis, in which the patriarch and the metropolitan of Alexandria were
for a while banished to the desert. A principal object of these lay
councils is to control the financial and legal powers vested in
patriarch and bishops--powers which have often been greatly abused.
Other objects are (1) to provide Christian religious education in all
Coptic schools and to raise these schools to a high standard in secular
matters; (2) to promote the education of women; (3) to apply church
revenues to the maintenance of churches and schools and to the better
payment of the clergy, who are now often compelled to live on charity;
(4) to ensure prompt administration of justice in ecclesiastical causes
such as divorce, inheritance, &c.; and (5) to establish colleges for the
efficient training of the clergy. Educated Copts remember the time when
the church of Alexandria was as famous for learning as for zeal. They
desire also to resist the serious encroachments of Roman Catholic,
American Presbyterian, and other foreign missions upon their ancient
faith. (A. J. B.)

AUTHORITIES.--(1) _History and Religion_: Johann Michael Wansleben
(Vansleb), a Dominican and learned orientalist (1635-1679), _Hist. de
l'eglise d'Alexandrie_ (Paris, 1677), written at Cairo in 1672 and
1673 mainly from original native sources, and _Nouvelle Relation ...
d'un voyage fait en Egypte, &c._ (Paris, 1677 and 1698, Eng. trans.,
London, 1678); Eusebe Renaudot the younger (1646-1720), _Historia
Patriarcharum Alexandrinorum_ (Paris, 1713); Ab[=u] Dakn (Josephus
Abudacnus), _Historia Jacobitarum_ (Oxford, 1675, Eng. trans. by Sir
E. Sadleir, London, 1693); S. C. Malan, _Original Documents of the
Coptic Church_ (London, 1874); Denzinger, _Ritus Orientalium_
(Wurzburg, 1863); Hon. Robert Curzon, _Visits to Monasteries in the
Levant_ (London, 1849); J. M. Neale, _Hist. of the Patriarchate of
Alexandria_ (2 vols., ib., 1847), in the _Hist. of the Holy Eastern
Church_, coloured by the writer's Anglo-Catholic point of view; A. J.
Butler, _Ancient