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The Church in Egypt is one of the oldest in the world. Egypt’s former capital Alexandria was one of the great Christian centres until 640 AD, when the country was invaded by Muslim Arabs. By 1820 the number of Christians in Egypt had declined to just 100,000. Today there are between six and nine million Christians; around 90% of the population are Muslims.
The Egyptian constitution guarantees freedom of religion, but Christians are discriminated against at schools, universities and work. Presidential permission is needed to build churches, and obtaining the permit is a very slow and often futile business. While there is no law against apostasy, converts from Islam to Christianity often face harassment and severe pressure, sometimes even threats to their lives. They are not allowed to change their religious affiliation on their ID cards, even though there is no law against doing so. Children of converts from Islam are automatically considered Muslim. A Christian mother, who had been fighting for custody for her sons since 2006, after their father converted to Islam and divorced her, lost her court case in September 2008. The 13-year old twins are now considered Muslims, even though they are firm believers.
There are continual reports of anti-Christian violence, which occurs especially in rural areas. In May 2008 several full-time Christian workers were abducted, beaten and tortured by Muslim extremists who tried to force them to convert to Islam. There have also been numerous cases of Christian women and girls being kidnapped by Muslims, forced to convert to Islam and married off to Muslim men.
