Coptic Orthodox Church in Africa - Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco

Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco

Christianity spread to the Pentapolis of North Africa from Egypt; Synesius of Cyrene (370-414), bishop of Ptolemais, received his instruction at Alexandria in both the Catechetical School and the Museion, and he entertained a great deal of reverence and affection for Hypatia, the last pagan Neoplatonists, whose classes he had attended. Synesius was raised to the episcopate by Theophilus, patriarch of Alexandria, in 410 A.D. Since the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D., Cyrenaica had been recognized as an ecclesiastical province of the See of Alexandria, in accordance with the ruling of the Nicaean Fathers. Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria to this day includes the Pentapolis in his title as an area within his jurisdiction.

The Coptic congregations in these countries were under the ancient Eparchy of the Western Pentapolis, which was part of the Coptic Orthodox Church for centuries until the thirteenth century

In 1971 Pope Shenouda III reinstated it as part of the Eparchy of Pachomius, Metropolitan of the Holy Metropolis of Beheira (Thmuis and Hermopolis Parva), (Buto), Mariout (Mareotis), Marsa Matruh (Paraetonium), (Apis), Patriarchal Exarch of the Ancient Metropolis of Libya: (Livis, Marmarica, Darnis and Tripolitania) and Titular Metropolitan Archbishop of the Great and Ancient Metropolis of Pentapolis: (Cyrenaica), (Appollonia), (Ptolemais), (Berenice) and (Arsinoe).

This was one among a chain of many restructuring of several eparchies by Pope Shenouda III, while some of them were incorporated into the jurisdiction of others, especially those who were within an uncovered region or which were part of a Metropolis that became extinct, or by dividing large eparchies into smaller more manageble eparchies. This was part of the restructuring of the Church as a whole.