Praying for Egypt

Where the church stands in Egypt

Egypt's Coptic church traces its founding to the apostle Mark and has survived nearly two thousand years as a minority. Around ten percent of Egyptians are Christian — roughly ten million people, the largest Christian population in the Middle East by a wide margin.

It is a church that knows suffering well: bombings, church burnings and the martyrdom of the twenty-one Coptic believers on a Libyan beach in 2015, whose composure in death preached to the entire world. Alongside it, a smaller evangelical movement has grown, including a large Cairo congregation meeting in a cave church in the garbage-collectors' district.

Signs of hope

An ancient church still standing, a growing evangelical movement, and Egyptian believers with credibility across the Arab world.

The honest difficulty

Discrimination, restrictions on building and repairing churches, and periodic violence against Christian communities.

What "Less-reached" means

There is a church, but it is small relative to the population, or the Christian identity is far more widespread than active faith. Much of the nation can still live a whole life without meeting a follower of Jesus.

In Egypt the majority religious context is Islam (~90%), Christianity (~10%). The largest population still considered without meaningful Gospel access is the Egyptian Arab Muslim (~100 million).

How to pray for Egypt

Prayer is not a substitute for going; it is how going begins. Take one of these for a week rather than all of them for a day.

• Thank God for a church that has endured in Egypt for nearly two thousand years.
• Pray for Coptic and evangelical believers facing discrimination and, at times, violence.
• Ask God to bless Egypt's Christians with favour among their Muslim neighbours.
• Pray for Egyptian workers carrying the Gospel across the wider Arab world.