Spotlight on Egypt

No nation in the Middle East-North Africa region has a larger Christian community than Egypt. Though media reports sometimes suggest that Christians make up 10% or more of Egypt’s population of approximately 80 million people, census and survey data analyzed for this report indicate that Egypt’s Christian population is about half that size. The study finds that there are 4.3 million Christians in Egypt — more than in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Syria combined.

Nine-in-ten Egyptian Christians are Orthodox Christian. Most Christians in Egypt belong to the Coptic Orthodox Church, which is an Oriental Orthodox church.¹ (See Defining Christian Traditions.) 

Census and demographic survey data suggest that the Christian share of Egypt’s total population has been declining.² The highest share reported in the past century was in 1927, when the census found that 8.3% of Egyptians were Christian. In each of the eight subsequent censuses, the Christian share of the population gradually shrank.³ The most recent census, in 2006, found that about 5% of the population was Christian. The Pew Forum’s 2011 report on the global Muslim population estimated that approximately 95% of Egyptians were Muslim in 2010.⁴ 

Although Egypt’s Christian population is overwhelmingly Orthodox, other Christian denominations and movements have a significant presence in the country. For example, there are an estimated 140,000 Egyptian Catholics and more than 250,000 Egyptian Protestants. Evangelical, pentecostal and charismatic movements have influenced Protestantism in Egypt, leading, for example, to the formation of the Coptic Evangelical Organization for Social Services, founded by evangelical layman Samuel Habib in 1950 to promote community development.⁵ 

Footnotes:  

1 “July-December, 2010 International Religious Freedom Report,” U.S. State Department. (return to text) 

2 Of course, it is possible that Christians in Egypt have been undercounted in censuses and demographic surveys. According to the Pew Forum’s August 2011 report Rising Restrictions on Religion, Egypt has very high government restrictions on religion as well as very high social hostilities involving religion. These factors may lead some Christians, particularly converts from Islam, to be cautious about revealing their faith. Government records may also undercount Christians. According to news reports, for example, some Egyptian Christians have complained that they are listed on official identity cards as Muslims. For more information, see http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1770/ask-the-expert-pewresearch- center#christians-egypt. (return to text) 

3 Data on fertility patterns in Egypt support census accounts of a declining Christian population share. For decades, Christian fertility in Egypt has been lower than Muslim fertility. See Youssef Courbage and Philippe Fargues (1997), Christians and Jews Under Islam, I.B. Tauris & Co. Translated by Judy Mabro, p. 200; see also Elana Ambrosetti and Nahid Kamal (2008), “The Relationship between Religion and Fertility: The Case of Bangladesh and Egypt.” Paper presented at the 2008 European Population Conference. (return to text) 

4 Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, The Future of the Global Muslim Population: Projections for 2010-2030, 2011. (return to text) 

5 Paul Rowe, “Building Coptic Civil Society: Christian Groups and the State in Mubarak’s Egypt,” Middle Eastern Studies, Volume 45, Issue 1, 2009, page 120. (return to text)