Pope Tawadros II, the Patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church, will visit Australia at the end of the month.
The 10 day visit, which begins on 30th August, will include meetings with the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian as well as see him visit churches and schools in both Melbourne and Sydney.
Australia is home to the third largest Coptic community outside of Egypt with more than 100,000 reportedly calling the nation home. The Coptic Orthodox Church’s Diocese of Sydney, where some 70,000 Copts live, encompasses the Australian states of NSW and Queensland as well as the Northern Territory and several Asian nations including Singapore, Thailand, Japan, Malaysia and Indonesia.
The Coptic Orthodox Church is based in Egypt where about 15 per cent of the 95 million population are Copts. Said to have been founded by St Mark the Evangelist, it is believed to be one of the oldest Christian denominations in the world. The word ‘Coptic’ is derived from the Greek word for ‘Egyptian’.
