Cophitis, or COPRI, a name given to the Christians of Egypt, who are of the sect of Jacobites.

The critics are extremely divided about the origin and orthography of the word; some write it Cophit, others Cophites, Cophitae, Copts, &c. Scaliger derives the name from Copitos, an anciently celebrated town of Egypt, the metropolis of the Thebaid. Kircher refutes this opinion, and maintains, that the word originally signifies "cut" and "circumscribed;" and was given these people by the Mahometans, by way of reproach, because of their practice of circumcision: but P. Sollier, another Jesuit, refutes this opinion. Scaliger afterwards changed his opinion, and derived the word from Αργετης, the ancient name of Egypt, by retrenching the first syllable: but this opinion, too, P. Sollier disputes. John de Leo and others say, that the Egyptians anciently called their country Elchibith, or Cibith, from Cibith their first king, whence Copticite, &c. others say from Cobit second king of Egypt. Vanleb derives the word Copt from Copt, son of Misraim, grandson of Noah. All these etymologies P. Sollier rejects, on this principle, that were they true, the Egyptians ought all equally to be called Coptic; whereas, in effect, none but the Christians, and among those none but the Jacobites, bear the name, the Melchites not being comprehended under it. Hence he chooses to derive the word from the name Jacobite, retrenching the first syllable; whence Cobite, Cobeia, Copta, and Copta.

The Copts have a patriarch who resides at Cairo, but he takes his title from Alexandria: he has no archbishop under him, but 11 or 12 bishops. The rest of the clergy, whether secular or regular, is composed of the orders of St Anthony, St Paul, and St Macarius, who have each their monasteries. Besides the orders of priests, deacons, and subdeacons, the Copts have likewise archimandrites, the dignity whereof they confer with all the prayers and ceremonies of a strict ordination. This makes a considerable difference among the priests; and besides the rank and authority it gives them with regard to the religious, it comprehends the degree and functions of archpriests. By a custom of 600 years standing, if a priest elected bishop be not already archimandrite, that dignity must be conferred on him before episcopal ordination. The second person among the clergy, after the patriarch, is the titular patriarch of Jerusalem, who also resides at Cairo, because of the few Copts at Jerusalem; he is, in effect, little more than the bishop of Cairo: only he goes to Jerusalem every Easter, and visits some other places in Palestine near Egypt, which own his jurisdiction. To him belongs the government of the Coptic church, during the vacancy of the patriarchal see.

To be elected patriarch, it is necessary the person have lived all his life in continence; it is he confers the bishoprics. To be elected bishop, the person must be in the celibate; or, if he has been married, it must not be above once. The priests and inferior ministers are allowed to be married before ordination; but are not obliged to it, as Ludolphus erroneously observes. They have a great number of deacons, and even confer the dignity frequently on children. None but the lowest rank among the people commence ecclesiastics; whence arises that excessive ignorance found among them; yet the respect of the laity towards the clergy is very extraordinary. Their office is longer than the Roman office, and never changes in anything: they have three liturgies, which they vary occasionally.

The monastic life is in great esteem among the Copts: to be admitted into it, there is always required the consent of the bishop. The religious Copts make a vow of perpetual chastity; renounce the world, and live with great austerity in deserts: Copts, they are obliged to sleep in their clothes and their girdle, on a mat stretched on the ground; and to prostrate themselves every evening 150 times, with their face and breast on the ground. They are all both men and women, of the lowest class of the people; and live on alms. The nunneries are properly hospitals; and few enter but widows reduced to beggary.

F. Roderic reduces the errors and opinions of the Copts to the following heads: 1. That they put away their wives, and espouse others while the first are living. 2. That they have seven sacraments, viz. baptism, the eucharist, confirmation, ordination, faith, fasting, and prayer. 3. That they deny the Holy Spirit to proceed from the Son. 4. That they only allow of three oecumenical councils; those of Nice, Constantinople, and Ephesus. 5. That they only allow of one nature, will, and operation, in Jesus Christ, after the union of the humanity with the divinity. For their errors in discipline, they may be reduced, 1. To the practice of circumcising their children before baptism, which has obtained among them from the 12th century. 2. To their ordaining deacons at five years of age. 3. To their allowing of marriage in the second degree. 4. To their forbearing to eat blood; to which some add their belief of a baptism by fire, which they confer by applying a hot iron to their forehead or cheeks.

Others palliate these errors, and show that many of them are rather abuses of particular persons than doctrines of the sect. This seems to be the case with regard to their polygamy, eating of blood, marrying in the second degree, and the baptism of fire; for circumcision, it is not practised as a ceremony of religion, nor as of any divine appointment, but merely as a custom, which they derive from the Illuminati; and which, perhaps, may have had its origin from a view to health and decency in those hot countries.

The Copts, at different times, have made several reunions with the Latins; but always in appearance only, and under some necessity of their affairs. In the time of Pope Paul IV., a Syrian was dispatched to Rome from the patriarch of Alexandria, with letters to that pope; wherein he acknowledged his authority, and promised obedience; defining a person might be dispatched to Alexandria; to treat about a reunion of his church to that of Rome; pursuant to which, Pius IV., successor to Paul, chose F. Roderic, a Jesuit, whom he dispatched in 1567, in quality of apostolical nuncio. But the Jesuit, upon a conference with two Copts deputed for that purpose by the patriarch, was made to know, that the titles of father of fathers, pastor of pastors, and master of all churches, which the patriarch had bestowed on the pope in his letters, were no more than mere matters of civility and compliment; and that it was in this manner the patriarch used to write to his friends: they added, that since the council of Chalcedon, and the establishment of several patriarchs independent of one another, each was chief and master of his own church. This was the answer the patriarch gave the pope, after he had received a sum of money remitted to him from Rome, by the hands of the Venetian consul.