Among Egypt’s Christian community, the vast majority are Orthodox Coptic Christians. Evangelical Christians constitute only a small minority of the country’s Christian population. Founded in the mid-19th century by American missionaries, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Egypt – also known as the Synod of the Nile – has most of its churches concentrated in the urban centers of Cairo, Alexandria or in Upper Egypt. However, there are almost 100 Presbyterian churches in Egypt with no pastors, according to Global Ministries. This has put those churches at risk of closure, challenging the oldest Seminary in the country, the Evangelical Presbyterian Seminary (ETSC) in Cairo, to increase its student admissions. To find out more about what becoming an Evangelical pastor entails, Egyptian Streets talked to 24-year-old Amen, a second-year MA student in Theology at the seminary, who decided to move away from the direction of his undergraduate degree in Engineering to instead pursue advanced religious studies. Raised in a Christian house in Upper Egypt, Amen is the son of a priest at the Evangelical Church in Nag Hammadi, a town named after its founder Mahmoud Pasha Hammadi and situated in the governorate…
Egypt’s Evangelical Christians: Education Keeps Local Churches Running
July 11, 2019
