The sparse scholarship on the political role of Coptic Christians in modern Egypt almost always takes the Coptic Orthodox Church as a point of departure, assuming that the head of the church, the Coptic patriarch, is not only the spiritual leader of the community but its political leader as well. This article argues that the disproportionate attention afforded to the Coptic Orthodox Church in this scholarship has obscured intra-communal dynamics of the Copts that are essential to an understanding of their political role. Through an analysis of historical struggles between the Coptic clergy and the Coptic laity for influence in Egyptian politics, as well as a particular focus on how these struggles have played out in the arena of personal status law, the article demonstrates that Egyptian politics and Coptic communal dynamics are deeply intertwined, to a degree often disregarded both by Copts and by Egypt analysts.
