1.
Arabic
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Arabic is a Central Semitic language that was first spoken in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. Arabic is also the language of 1.7 billion Muslims. It is one of six languages of the United Nations. The modern written language is derived from the language of the Quran and it is widely taught in schools and universities, and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, government, and the media. The two formal varieties are grouped together as Literary Arabic, which is the language of 26 states. Modern Standard Arabic largely follows the standards of Quranic Arabic. Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the post-Quranic era, Arabic has influenced many languages around the globe throughout its history. During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics. As a result, many European languages have borrowed many words from it. Many words of Arabic origin are found in ancient languages like Latin. Balkan languages, including Greek, have acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish. Arabic has also borrowed words from languages including Greek and Persian in medieval times. Arabic is a Central Semitic language, closely related to the Northwest Semitic languages, the Ancient South Arabian languages, the Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the establishment of the Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include, The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation into a past tense, the conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation into a present tense. The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms, the development of an internal passive. These features are evidence of descent from a hypothetical ancestor. In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside of the Ancient South Arabian family were spoken and it is also believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages were also spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hijaz, Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages, in Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested
2.
Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria
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The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria is the largest Christian Church in Egypt, Northeast Africa and the Middle East. According to tradition, the Church was established by Saint Mark, the head of the Church and the See of Alexandria is the Patriarch of Alexandria on the Holy See of Saint Mark, who also carries the title of Coptic Pope. The See of Alexandria is titular, and today the Coptic Pope presides from Saint Marks Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in the Abbassia District in Cairo. The precise Christological differences that caused the split with the Coptic Christians are still disputed, highly technical, the foundational roots of the Coptic Church are based in Egypt, but it has a worldwide following. Isaiah the prophet, in Chapter 19, Verse 19 says In that day there will be an altar to the LORD in the midst of the land of Egypt, the first Christians in Egypt were common people who spoke Egyptian Coptic. There were also Alexandrian Jews such as Theophilus, whom Saint Luke the Evangelist addresses in the chapter of his gospel. When the church was founded by Saint Mark during the reign of the Roman emperor Nero, in the 2nd century, Christianity began to spread to the rural areas, and scriptures were translated into the local languages, namely Coptic. The Catechetical School of Alexandria is the oldest catechetical school in the world, St. Jerome records that the Christian School of Alexandria was founded by Saint Mark himself. Origen wrote over 6,000 commentaries of the Bible in addition to his famous Hexapla, many scholars such as Jerome visited the school of Alexandria to exchange ideas and to communicate directly with its scholars. The scope of this school was not limited to subjects, science, mathematics. The question-and-answer method of commentary began there, and 15 centuries before Braille, wood-carving techniques were in use there by blind scholars to read, the Theological college of the catechetical school was re-established in 1893. Many Egyptian Christians went to the desert during the 3rd century, by the end of the 5th century, there were hundreds of monasteries, and thousands of cells and caves scattered throughout the Egyptian desert. A great number of these monasteries are still flourishing and have new vocations to this day, countless pilgrims have visited the Desert Fathers to emulate their spiritual, disciplined lives. In the 4th century, an Alexandrian presbyter named Arius began a dispute about the nature of Christ that spread throughout the Christian world and is now known as Arianism. We confess one Baptism for the remission of sins and we look for the resurrection of the dead, as a consequence of this, he denied the title Mother of God to the Virgin Mary, declaring her instead to be Mother of Christ Christotokos. When reports of this reached the Apostolic Throne of Saint Mark, Pope Saint Cyril I of Alexandria acted quickly to correct this breach with orthodoxy, when he would not, the Synod of Alexandria met in an emergency session and a unanimous agreement was reached. Pope Cyril I of Alexandria, supported by the entire See and this epistle drew heavily on the established Patristic Constitutions and contained the most famous article of Alexandrian Orthodoxy, The Twelve Anathemas of Saint Cyril. In these anathemas, Cyril excommunicated anyone who followed the teachings of Nestorius, for example, Anyone who dares to deny the Holy Virgin the title Theotokos is Anathema
3.
Copts
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The Copts are an ethno-religious group that primarily inhabit the area of modern Egypt, where they are the largest Christian denomination. Copts are also the largest Christian adherent group in Sudan and Libya, historically, they spoke the Coptic language, a direct descendant of the Demotic Egyptian that was spoken during the Roman era. The Coptic language is a focus of Coptology and remains in liturgical use, Copts in Sudan constitute the largest Christian community in Sudan, accounting for an estimated 1% of the Sudanese population. Copts in Libya constitute the largest Christian community in Libya, accounting for an estimated 1% of the Libyan population, most Copts adhere to the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. The Coptic Catholic Church, which is an Eastern Catholic church in communion with the Catholic Church. The Coptic word is in turn an adaptation of the Greek term for the people of Egypt. The Greek term for Egypt, Aigýptos, is derived from the Egyptian language. This Mycenaean form is likely from Middle Egyptian ḥwt-k3-ptḥ, literally Estate of the Spirit of Ptah, the term is thus ultimately derived from the Greek designation of the native Egyptian population in Roman Egypt. After the Muslim conquest of Egypt, it restricted to those Egyptians adhering to the Christian religion. In Coptic Egyptian, the Copts referred to themselves as ni rem en kīmi en khristianos, which literally means Christian people of Egypt or Christian Egyptians. The Coptic name for Egyptians, rem en kīmi, is realized in the Fayyumic dialect as lem en kēmi, or rem en khēmi in the Bohairic dialect, cf. Egyptian rmṯ n kmt, Demotic rmt n kmỉ. The Arabic word qibṭ has also connected to the Greek name of the town of Coptos. It is possible that this association has contributed to making Copt the settled form of the name, in the 20th century, some Egyptian nationalists and intellectuals in the context of Pharaonism began using the term qubṭ in the historical sense. The Copts are one of the oldest Christian communities in the Middle East, although integrated in the larger Egyptian nation state, the Copts have survived as a distinct religious community forming around 10–20% of the population, though estimates vary. They pride themselves on the apostolicity of the Egyptian Church whose founder was the first in a chain of patriarchs. The main body for 16 centuries has been out of communion with both the Roman Catholic Church and the various Eastern orthodox churches, the legacy that Saint Mark left in Egypt was a considerable Christian community in Alexandria. The Church of Alexandria is therefore the oldest Christian church in Africa, the Copts in Egypt contributed immensely to Christian tradition. The Catechetical School of Alexandria was the oldest catechetical school in the world, however, the scope of this school was not limited to theological subjects, science, mathematics and humanities were also taught there
4.
Libya
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The three traditional parts of the country are Tripolitania, Fezzan and Cyrenaica. With an area of almost 1.8 million square kilometres, Libya is the fourth largest country in Africa, Libya has the 10th-largest proven oil reserves of any country in the world. The largest city and capital, Tripoli, is located in western Libya, the other large city is Benghazi, which is located in eastern Libya. Libya has been inhabited by Berbers since the late Bronze Age, the Phoenicians established trading posts in western Libya, and ancient Greek colonists established city-states in eastern Libya. Libya was variously ruled by Carthaginians, Persians, Egyptians and Greeks before becoming a part of the Roman Empire, Libya was an early center of Christianity. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the area of Libya was mostly occupied by the Vandals until the 7th century, in the 16th century, the Spanish Empire and the Knights of St John occupied Tripoli, until Ottoman rule began in 1551. Libya was involved in the Barbary Wars of the 18th and 19th centuries, Ottoman rule continued until the Italian occupation of Libya resulted in the temporary Italian Libya colony from 1911 to 1943. During the Second World War Libya was an important area of warfare in the North African Campaign, the Italian population then went into decline. Libya became an independent kingdom in 1951, a military coup in 1969 overthrew King Idris I, beginning a period of sweeping social reform. Since then, Libya has experienced a period of instability, the European Union is involved in an operation to disrupt human trafficking networks exploiting refugees fleeing from wars in Africa for Europe. At least two political bodies claim to be the government of Libya, the Council of Deputies is internationally recognized as the legitimate government, but it does not hold territory in the capital, Tripoli, instead meeting in the Cyrenaica city of Tobruk. Parts of Libya are outside of either governments control, with various Islamist, rebel, the United Nations is sponsoring peace talks between the Tobruk and Tripoli-based factions. An agreement to form an interim government was signed on 17 December 2015. Under the terms of the agreement, a nine-member Presidency Council, the leaders of the new government, called the Government of National Accord, arrived in Tripoli on 5 April 2016. Since then the GNC, one of the two governments, has disbanded to support the new GNA. The name Libya was introduced in 1934 for Italian Libya, reviving the name for Northwest Africa. The name was based on use in 1903 by Italian geographer Federico Minutilli. It was intended to supplant terms applied to Ottoman Tripolitania, the region of what is today Libya having been ruled by the Ottoman Empire from 1551 to 1911
5.
Copts in Egypt
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Copts in Egypt refers to Coptic people born in or residing in Egypt. Coptic people are the largest ethno-religious minority in Egypt, under Muslim rule, the ethnic Copts were cut off from the main stream of Christianity, and were compelled to adhere to the Pact of Umar covenant, thus assigned to Dhimmi status. Their position improved dramatically under the rule of Muhammad Ali in the early 19th century and he abolished the Jizya and allowed ethnic Copts to enroll in the army. Pope Cyril IV, 1854–61, reformed the church and encouraged broader Coptic participation in Egyptian affairs, khedive Ismail Pasha, in power 1863–79, further promoted the Copts. He appointed them judges to Egyptian courts and awarded them political rights, some ethnic Copts participated in the Egyptian national movement for independence and occupied many influential positions. Two significant cultural achievements include the founding of the Coptic Museum in 1910, some prominent Coptic thinkers from this period are Salama Moussa, Louis Awad and Secretary General of the Wafd Party Makram Ebeid. In 1952, Gamal Abdel Nasser led some army officers in a coup détat against King Farouk, Nassers mainstream policy was pan-Arab nationalism and socialism. The ethnic Copts were severely affected by Nassers nationalization policies, though they represented about 10–20% of the population, many Coptic intellectuals hold to Pharaonism, which states that Coptic culture is largely derived from pre-Christian, Pharaonic culture, and is not indebted to Greece. It gives the Copts a claim to a heritage in Egyptian history. Pharaonism was widely held by Coptic and Muslim scholars in the early 20th century, however, some Western scholars today argue that Pharaonism was a late development shaped primarily by Orientalism, and doubt its validity. Religious freedom in Egypt is hampered to varying degrees by discriminatory, Coptic Christians, being the largest religious minority in Egypt, are also negatively affected. Copts have faced increasing marginalization after the 1952 coup détat led by Gamal Abdel Nasser, until recently, Christians were required to obtain presidential approval for even minor repairs in churches. Although the law was eased in 2005 by handing down the authority of approval to the governors, Copts continue to face many obstacles and these restrictions do not apply for building mosques. The Coptic community has been targeted by hate crimes resulting in Copts being victims of murder by Islamic extremists, the most significant was the 2000–01 El Kosheh attacks, in which Muslims and Christians were involved in bloody inter-religious clashes following a dispute between a Muslim and a Christian. Twenty Christians and one Muslim were killed after violence broke out in the town of el-Kosheh,440 kilometres south of Cairo, in 2006, one person attacked three churches in Alexandria, killing one person and injuring 5–16. The attacker was not linked to any organisation and described as psychologically disturbed by the Ministry of Interior, in May 2010, The Wall Street Journal reported increasing waves of mob attacks by Muslims against ethnic Copts. Despite frantic calls for help, the police arrived after the violence was over. The police also coerced the Copts to accept reconciliation with their attackers to avoid prosecuting them, Boutros Boutros-Ghali is a Copt who served as Egypts foreign minister under President Anwar Sadat
6.
Subdivisions of Libya
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Subdivisions of Libya have varied significantly over the last two centuries. Initially Libya under Ottoman and Italian control was organized into three to four provinces, then into three governorates and after World War II into twenty-five districts, successively into thirty-two districts with three administrative regions, and then into twenty-two districts. In 2012 the ruling General National Congress divided the country into governorates, while the districts have been created, the governorates have not. Prior to the Italian invasion of 1911, the area of Libya was administered as three separate provinces of the Ottoman Empire, Tripolitania, Fezzan, and Cyrenaica. At first, Italy continued the administration, but soon consolidated the area into a single province/gobernatorate administered as the Libyan Colony. Indeed, until about 1931 -when the last of the resistance to the Italians was subdued- the area was divided into three historical regions. Then, in 1937, Italian governor Italo Balbo created the entity called Libya. His Italian Libya was with four provinces and one territory, Tripoli, Misurata, Benghazi, Derna, and the Territory of the Libyan Sahara. After the French and British occupied Libya in 1943, it was split into three provinces, Tripolitania in the northwest, Cyrenaica in the east, and Fezzan-Ghadames in the southwest. After independence, Libya was divided into three governorates, matching the three provinces of before, but in 1963 it was divided into ten governorates, the Provinces of Libya existed during the last period of colonial Italian Libya through post-independence Libya. The country was divided into provinces from 1934 in the era to 1963 when the Governorates system was instituted. The Governorates of Libya were a division of Libya from 1963 until 1983. Initially there were 46 governorates-districts, called baladiyah, that were reduced to 25 in 1987, in 1983, a new system was introduced dividing the country into forty-six districts. In 1987 this number was reduced to twenty-five, on 2 August 1995, Libya reorganized into thirteen districts. In 1998 this was increased to twenty-six districts, in 2001 it was increased to thirty-two districts plus three administrative regions. Finally in 2007 the number was reduced to twenty-two districts, under Gaddafi Libyan districts were further subdivided into Basic Peoples Congresses Arabic, مؤتمر شعبي أساسي. Geographically they corresponded approximately to the level of a township or borough, in desert areas they often had an extensive land area with very low population, and were generally centered on, and named for, an oasis. Districts of Libya Governorates of Libya Provinces of Libya Basic Peoples Congress
7.
Christianity
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Christianity is a Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, who serves as the focal point for the religion. It is the worlds largest religion, with over 2.4 billion followers, or 33% of the global population, Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the savior of humanity whose coming as the Messiah was prophesied in the Old Testament. Christian theology is summarized in creeds such as the Apostles Creed and his incarnation, earthly ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection are often referred to as the gospel, meaning good news. The term gospel also refers to accounts of Jesuss life and teaching, four of which—Matthew, Mark, Luke. Christianity is an Abrahamic religion that began as a Second Temple Judaic sect in the mid-1st century, following the Age of Discovery, Christianity spread to the Americas, Australasia, sub-Saharan Africa, and the rest of the world through missionary work and colonization. Christianity has played a prominent role in the shaping of Western civilization, throughout its history, Christianity has weathered schisms and theological disputes that have resulted in many distinct churches and denominations. Worldwide, the three largest branches of Christianity are the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the denominations of Protestantism. There are many important differences of interpretation and opinion of the Bible, concise doctrinal statements or confessions of religious beliefs are known as creeds. They began as baptismal formulae and were expanded during the Christological controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries to become statements of faith. Many evangelical Protestants reject creeds as definitive statements of faith, even agreeing with some or all of the substance of the creeds. The Baptists have been non-creedal in that they have not sought to establish binding authoritative confessions of faith on one another. Also rejecting creeds are groups with roots in the Restoration Movement, such as the Christian Church, the Evangelical Christian Church in Canada, the Apostles Creed is the most widely accepted statement of the articles of Christian faith. It is also used by Presbyterians, Methodists, and Congregationalists and this particular creed was developed between the 2nd and 9th centuries. Its central doctrines are those of the Trinity and God the Creator, each of the doctrines found in this creed can be traced to statements current in the apostolic period. The creed was used as a summary of Christian doctrine for baptismal candidates in the churches of Rome. Most Christians accept the use of creeds, and subscribe to at least one of the mentioned above. The central tenet of Christianity is the belief in Jesus as the Son of God, Christians believe that Jesus, as the Messiah, was anointed by God as savior of humanity, and hold that Jesus coming was the fulfillment of messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. The Christian concept of the Messiah differs significantly from the contemporary Jewish concept, Jesus, having become fully human, suffered the pains and temptations of a mortal man, but did not sin
8.
Cyrenaica
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Cyrenaica is the eastern coastal region of Libya. Also known as Pentapolis in antiquity, it formed part of the Roman province of Crete and Cyrenaica, later divided into Libya Pentapolis, during the Islamic period, the area came to be known as Barqa, after the city of Barca. In a wider sense, still in use, Cyrenaica includes all of the part of Libya. Cyrenaica borders on Tripolitania in the northwest and on Fezzan in the southwest, the region that used to be Cyrenaica officially until 1963 has formed several shabiyat, the administrative divisions of Libya, since 1995. The 2011 Libyan Civil War started in Cyrenaica, which came largely under the control of the National Transitional Council for most of the war. Geologically, Cyrenaica rests on a mass of Miocene limestone that tilts up steeply from the Mediterranean Sea and this mass is divided into two blocks. The Jebel Akhdar extends parallel to the coast from the Gulf of Sidra to the Gulf of Bomba, there is no continuous coastal plain, the longest strip running from the recess of Gulf of Sidra past Benghazi to Tolmeita. Thereafter, except for deltaic patches at Susa and Derna, the shore is all precipitous, a steep escarpment separates the coastal plain from a relatively level plateau, known as the Marj Plain, which lies at about 300 meters elevation. Above the Marj Plain lies a plateau at about 700 meters elevation. The Jebel Akhdar and its adjacent coast are part of the Mediterranean woodlands and forests ecoregion, the plant communities of this portion of Cyrenaica include forest, woodland, maquis, garrigue, steppe, and oak savanna. Small areas of maquis are found on north-facing slopes near the sea, juniperus phoenicea, Pistacia lentiscus, Quercus coccifera and Ceratonia siliqua are common tree and large shrub species in the maquis. Areas of red soil are found on the Marj Plain, which has borne abundant crops of wheat, plenty of springs issue on the highlands. Wild olive trees are abundant, and large areas of oak savanna provide pasture to the flocks, historically large areas of range were covered in forest. The forested area of the Jebel Akhdar has been shrinking in recent decades, a 1996 report to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that the forested area was reduced to 320,000 hectares from 500,000 hectares, mostly cleared to grow crops. The Green Mountain Conservation and Development Authority estimates that the area decreased from 500,000 hectares in 1976 to 180,000 hectares in 2007. The lower Jebel el-Akabah lies to the south and east of the Jebel Akhdar, the two highlands are separated by a depression. This eastern region, known in ancient times as Marmarica, is drier than the Jebel Akhdar. Historically, salt-collecting and sponge fishing were more important than agriculture, Bomba and Tobruk have good harbors
9.
Catechetical School of Alexandria
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The Catechetical School of Alexandria was a school of Christian theologians and priests in Alexandria. The teachers and students of the school were influential in many of the theological controversies of the Christian church. It was one of the two centers of the study of biblical exegesis and theology during Late Antiquity, the other being the School of Antioch. According to Jerome the Alexandrian school was founded by Mark the Apostle, the earliest recorded dean was supposedly Athenagoras. He was succeeded by Pantaenus 181, who was succeeded as head of the school by his student Clement of Alexandria in 190, other notable theologians with a connection to the school include Origen, Gregory Thaumaturgus, Heraclas, Dionysius the Great, and Didymus the Blind. Others, including Jerome and Basil, made trips to the school to interact with the scholars there, continuity with the ancient school is claimed by the Coptic Theological Seminary, Cairo. The Catechetical School of Alexandria is the oldest catechetical school in the world, Jerome records that the Christian School of Alexandria was founded by St. Mark himself and the first manager appointed by Saint Mark was Saint Justus, who later became the sixth bishop of Alexandria. There is another opinion that the school was founded mid-second century, many scholars, such as Jerome, visited the school of Alexandria to exchange ideas and to communicate directly with its scholars. The scope of this school was not limited to theological subjects, apart from subjects like theology, Christian philosophy and the Bible, science, mathematics and Greek & Roman literature, logic and the arts were also taught. The question-and-answer method of commentary began there, and,15 centuries before Braille, blind students at the school were using wood-carving techniques to read, Alexandrian school Christian Universalism Coptic Orthodox Church List of prominent Copts Middle Platonism Wickert, Ulrich. In The Encyclopedia of Christianity, edited by Erwin Fahlbusch and Geoffrey William Bromiley, ISBN0802824137 Coptic Orthodox Theological Seminary the United States Books Fr. Malaty The School of Alexandria — Deans Before Origen/BOOK1 The School of Alexandria & Origens Theology/BOOK2 Origen was excommunicated by the Coptic Orthodox Church in early church history
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Musaeum
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The Musaeum or Mouseion at Alexandria, which included the famous Library of Alexandria, was an institution founded by Ptolemy I Soter or, perhaps more likely, by his son Ptolemy II Philadelphus. This original Musaeum was the home of music or poetry, a school and library such as Platos Academy. It did not have a collection of works of art, rather it was an institution brought together some of the best scholars of the Hellenistic world. This original Musaeum was the source for the usage of the word museum. The Musaeum was an institution founded, according to Johannes Tzetzes, by Ptolemy I Soter or, perhaps more likely, the Mouseion remained supported by the patronage of the royal family of the Ptolemies. Such a Greek Mouseion was the home of music or poetry, in the 21st century, the nearest equivalent is a university. More than 1,000 scholars lived in the Mouseion at a given time, staff members and scholars were salaried by the Mouseion and paid no taxes. They also received free meals, free room and board, the Mouseion was administered by a priest appointed by the Pharaoh. The Mouseions scholars conducted scientific research, published, lectured, in addition to Greek works, foreign texts were translated from Assyrian, Persian, Jewish, Indian, and other sources. The Greek geographer Strabo described the Musaeum and Library as richly decorated edifices in a campus of buildings and gardens. The Mouseion is also part of the palaces, possessing a peripatos and exedra and large oikos, in which the table of the philologoi. This synodos has property in common and a priest in charge of the Mouseion, formerly appointed by the kings, --Strabo The Mouseion featured a roofed walkway, an arcade of seats, and a communal dining room where scholars routinely ate and shared ideas. The building was filled with study rooms, residential quarters, lecture halls. The following scholars are known to have studied, written, or performed their experiments at the Musaeum of Alexandria, the Musaeum continued as an institution in the Roman period when Strabo gave his description of it, and according to Suetonius, the emperor Claudius added an additional building. Under the emperors, membership of the Musaeum was awarded to prominent scholars, emperor Caracalla suppressed the Musaeum in 216, perhaps as a temporary measure. By this time, the center of learning in Alexandria had already moved to the Serapeum, the last known references to Musaeum membership occur in the 260s. The mathematician Theon, father of Hypatia, is described in the tenth century Suda as the man from the Mouseion and it is not known what connection he actually had with the Musaeum. Zacharias Rhetor and Aeneas of Gaza both speak of a space known as the Mouseion in the later 5th century
11.
Hypatia
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Hypatia, often called Hypatia of Alexandria, was a Greek mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher in Egypt, then a part of the Eastern Roman Empire. She was the head of the Neoplatonic school at Alexandria, where she taught philosophy, the mathematician and philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria was the only daughter of the mathematician Theon of Alexandria. Around 400, she became head of the Neoplatonist School in Alexandria, where she imparted the knowledge of Plato and Aristotle to students, including pagans, Christians, however, not all Christians were as hostile towards her, some Christians even used Hypatia as symbolic of Virtue. Having succeeded to the school of Plato and Plotinus, she explained the principles of philosophy to her auditors, many of whom came from a distance to receive her instructions. On account of the self-possession and ease of manner which she had acquired in consequence of the cultivation of her mind, neither did she feel abashed in going to an assembly of men. For all men on account of her dignity and virtue admired her the more. Hypatia corresponded with former pupil Synesius, who was tutored by her in the school of Platonism and later became bishop of Ptolemais in 410. Together with the references by the pagan philosopher Damascius, these are the extant records left by Hypatias pupils at the Platonist school of Alexandria. Hypatia was murdered during an episode of city-wide anger stemming from a feud between Orestes, the prefect of Alexandria, and Cyril, the Bishop of Alexandria and her death is symbolic for some historians. On the other hand, Christian Wildberg notes that Hellenistic philosophy continued to flourish in the 5th and 6th centuries, of the many accounts of Hypatias death, the most complete is the one written around 415 by Socrates Scholasticus and included in the Historia Ecclesiastica. According to this account, in 415 a feud began over Jewish dancing exhibitions in Alexandria, Orestes, the Roman governor of Alexandria, and Cyril, the Bishop of Alexandria, engaged in a bitter feud in which Hypatia eventually became a main point of contention. Orestes published an edict that outlined new regulations for such gatherings, the edict angered Christians as well as Jews. At one such gathering, Hierax, a devout Christian follower of Cyril, read the edict, many people felt that Hierax was attempting to incite the crowd into sedition. Orestes reacted swiftly and violently out of what Scholasticus suspected was jealousy the growing power of the bishops… encroached on the jurisdiction of the authorities and he ordered Hierax to be seized and tortured publicly in the theater. Hearing of Hieraxs severe and public punishment, Cyril threatened to retaliate against the Jews of Alexandria with the utmost severities if the harassment of Christians did not cease immediately. In response to Cyrils threat, the Jews of Alexandria grew even more furious, Socrates of Constantinoples account says that the Jews had plotted to flush out the Christians at night by running through the streets claiming that the Church of Alexander was on fire. The feud between Cyril and Orestes intensified because of things, and both men wrote to the emperor regarding the situation. Eventually, Cyril attempted to out to Orestes through several peace overtures
12.
Pope Theophilus of Alexandria
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Theophilus of Alexandria was the 23rd Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of St. Mark. He became Pope at a time of conflict between the newly dominant Christians and the establishment in Alexandria, each of which was supported by a segment of the Alexandrian populace. Edward Gibbon described him as. the perpetual enemy of peace and virtue, in 391, Theophilus discovered a hidden pagan temple. He and his followers mockingly displayed the pagan artifacts to the public which offended the pagans enough to provoke an attack on the Christians, the Christian faction counter-attacked, forcing the pagans to retreat to the Serapeum. Scholasticus goes on to state that, The destruction of the Serapeum was seen by many ancient, Theophilus turned on the followers of Origen after having supported them for a time. He switched his view of God from the view of God held by Origen to the anthropomorphic view held by many local monks who were hostile to his pastoral letter of 399. He was accompanied by his nephew Cyril to Constantinople in 403, Theophilus appears in the novel Flow Down Like Silver, Hypatia of Alexandria by Ki Longfellow. He appears as a character played by Manuel Cauchi in the 2009 film Agora, the lunar crater Theophilus was named after him, as part of a group of three lunar craters named after prominent Alexandrian Christians. Pope Theophilus is venerated as a saint only within the Coptic Church of Alexandria, his sainthood is not recognized by the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, the Chronicle of John, Bishop of Nikiu, Translated from Zotenbergs Ethiopic Text,1916. The Three Young Men in the Furnace and the Art of Ecphrasis in the Coptic Sermon by Theophilus of Alexandria, Studies in Ancient Art and Civilisation,10, official web site of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria and All Africa
13.
First Council of Nicaea
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The First Council of Nicaea was a council of Christian bishops convened in the Bithynian city of Nicaea by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in AD325. Constantine I organized the Council along the lines of the Roman Senate and presided over it and this ecumenical council was the first effort to attain consensus in the Church through an assembly representing all of Christendom. Hosius of Cordoba, who was one of the Papal legates. The First Council of Nicaea was the first ecumenical council of the Church, St. Alexander of Alexandria and Athanasius took the first position, the popular presbyter Arius, from whom the term Arianism comes, took the second. The council decided against the Arians overwhelmingly, through it a precedent was set for subsequent general councils to adopt creeds and canons. This council is considered the beginning of the period of the First seven Ecumenical Councils in the History of Christianity. The First Council of Nicaea was convened by Emperor Constantine the Great upon the recommendations of a synod led by Hosius of Córdoba in the Eastertide of 325 and this synod had been charged with investigation of the trouble brought about by the Arian controversy in the Greek-speaking east. To most bishops, the teachings of Arius were heretical and dangerous to the salvation of souls and this was the first general council in the history of the Church summoned by emperor Constantine I. In the Council of Nicaea, The Church had taken her first great step to define revealed doctrine more precisely in response to a challenge from a heretical theology. Constantine had invited all 1,800 bishops of the Christian church within the Roman Empire, Eusebius of Caesarea counted more than 250, Athanasius of Alexandria counted 318, and Eustathius of Antioch estimated about 270. Later, Socrates Scholasticus recorded more than 300, and Evagrius, Hilary of Poitiers, Jerome, Dionysius Exiguus and this number 318 is preserved in the liturgies of the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. Delegates came from every region of the Roman Empire, including Britain, the participating bishops were given free travel to and from their episcopal sees to the council, as well as lodging. These bishops did not travel alone, each one had permission to bring him two priests and three deacons, so the total number of attendees could have been above 1,800. Eusebius speaks of an almost innumerable host of accompanying priests, deacons, the Eastern bishops formed the great majority. Of these, the first rank was held by the three patriarchs, Alexander of Alexandria, Eustathius of Antioch, and Macarius of Jerusalem and this position is supported by patristic scholar Timothy Barnes in his book Constantine and Eusebius. Historically, the influence of these marred confessors has been seen as substantial, Athanasius of Alexandria, a young deacon and companion of Bishop Alexander of Alexandria, was among the assistants. Athanasius eventually spent most of his life battling against Arianism, Alexander of Constantinople, then a presbyter, was also present as representative of his aged bishop. The supporters of Arius included Secundus of Ptolemais, Theonus of Marmarica, Zphyrius, other supporters included Eusebius of Nicomedia, Paulinus of Tyrus, Actius of Lydda, Menophantus of Ephesus, and Theognus of Nicaea
14.
Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria
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The Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria is the leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. A faith with ancient Christian roots in Egypt, the current holder of this position is Theodoros II or Tawadros II, who was selected as the 118th pope on November 4,2012. Following the traditions of the church, the pope is chairman and this organization is the highest authority in the Church of Alexandria, which has between 12 and 18 million members worldwide,10 to 14 million of whom are in Egypt. It formulates the rules and regulations regarding matters of the organization, faith. The pope is also the chairman of the churchs General Congregation Council, although historically associated with the city of Alexandria, the residence and Seat of the Coptic Orthodox Pope of Alexandria has been located in Cairo since 1047. The pope is currently established in Saint Marks Coptic Orthodox Cathedral, inside a compound includes the Patriarchal Palace. After the death of Shenouda III on March 17,2012 the Holy Synod of the Coptic Orthodox Church voted, the names of the three candidates who received most votes were put in a glass chalice. The name then picked became the new Patriarch of Alexandria and it is believed the name is picked by Divine Choice, by a blindfolded boy. He is believed to be guided by the hand of God, the liturgy of the Altar Ballot took place on November 4,2012. The 60-year-old Bishop Tawadoros, Auxiliary Bishop of Beheira, assistant to Metropolitan Pachomios of Beheira, was chosen as the 118th Pope of Alexandria and he then chose the name of Theodoros II. He was formally enthroned on November 18,2012, the early Christian Church recognized the special significance of several cities as leaders of the worldwide catholic Church. The later development of the Pentarchy also granted recognition to these religious leaders. Because of this split, the leadership of church is not part of this system. The leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria is known as Pope of Alexandria, the Successor of St. Mark the Evangelist, Holy Apostle and Martyr, on the Holy Apostolic Throne of the Great City of Alexandria. Mark the Evangelist, the Holy Apostle and Martyr, in being so, he is considered to be, Father of Fathers. Hierarch of all Hierarchs Honorary titles attributed to the Hierarch of the Alexandrine Throne are, The Pillar and Defender of the Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church, the Dean of the Great Catechetical School of Theology of Alexandria. The Ecumenical Judge of the Holy Apostolic and Catholic Church, the Thirteenth among the Holy Apostles. “Pope and Lord Archbishop of the Great City of Alexandria and Patriarch of all Africa on the Holy Apostolic Holy See of St. Mark the Evangelist, the appellation of pope has been attributed to the Bishop of Alexandria since the episcopate of Heraclas, the thirteenth Bishop of Alexandria
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Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria
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This article uses dates and years written in the Coptic calendar, using the A. M. calendar era, in addition to the Gregorian calendar, using the A. D. calendar era. Pope Shenouda III was the 117th Pope of Alexandria & Patriarch of the See of St. Mark and his episcopate lasted 40 years, four months, and 4 days from 14 November 1971 until his death on 17 March 2012. His official title was Pope of Alexandria and the Patriarch of All Africa on the Holy Apostolic See of Saint Mark the Evangelist of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria and he was also the head of the Holy Synod of the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria. He was a figure within the Church, and was also respected within the Muslim community. Born Nazeer Gayed Roufail on 3 August 1923, he became a monk in 1954 under the name Father Antonios the Syrian after joining the Syrian Monastery of the Ever-Virgin Mary the Theotokos, in 1958, he was elevated to the priesthood. In 1962, Pope Cyril VI summoned Fr, Saint Shenoute the Archimandrite was instrumental in flourishing the Monastic Movement, active in Ecumenical issues, a noted Church teacher and writer, and an Egyptian Leader. Pope Shenouda III maintained the legacy of the name he carried, following the death of Pope Cyril VI on 9 March 1971, the selection process resulted in Bishop Shenoudas becoming the new Pope. He was consecrated on 14 November 1971, during his papacy, the Coptic church grew significantly. He appointed the first ever bishops for North American dioceses, which now contain two hundred parishes, up from four in 1971. He also appointed the first Coptic bishops in Europe, Australia, within Egypt, he struggled for the welfare of his people and the Church. Pope Shenouda III was known for his commitment to ecumenism and had and he devoted his writings, teachings and actions to spreading and propagating guidelines for understanding, peace, dialogue and forgiveness. D. and the 17th and 18th centuries A. M. He was the youngest of a family of eight children, five girls, nazeers mother died shortly after his birth. He was raised by his brother, Raphael, in Damanhur in lower Egypt. Soon after, he studied at the American Middle School in Banha and he then moved to Shubra, a suburb of Cairo, where he enrolled at the Faith Senior Secondary. From the age of 14, Nazeer began reading poetry and he wrote many poems himself, by the age of 16, he was active in the Coptic Sunday School movement. He served as a Sunday School teacher, first at Saint Anthonys Church in Shoubra, in 1943, Nazeer enrolled in Cairo University studying towards a Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in English and History. Meanwhile, he spent his vacations at the Western Desert Monastery of St. Mary. While a university student, he was a trainee in the Egyptian Military Reserve Corps, the Personality of Habib Girgis was instrumental in shaping that of the future Pope, and Pope Shenouda always spoke highly of Habib Girgis
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Beheira Governorate
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Beheira Governorate is a coastal governorate in Egypt. Located in the part of the country in the Nile Delta. Beheira Governorate enjoys an important strategical place, west of the Rosetta branch of the Nile and it comprises four important highways, namely the Cairo-Alexandria desert road, the Cairo agricultural road, the international road and the circular road. Beheira Governorate is also home to a number of the most important Coptic monasteries in Wadi El Natrun, beheira consists of 13 centers and 14 cities, and contains important industries such as cotton, chemicals, carpets, electricity and fishing. In 2017, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi appointed the first female governor in the history for Beheiras Governorate. According to population estimates from 2015 the majority of residents in the live in rural areas. Out of an estimated 5,804,262 people residing in the governorate,4,674,346 people live in areas as opposed to only 1,129,916 in urban areas
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Damanhur
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Damanhur is a city in Lower Egypt, and the capital of the Beheira Governorate. It is located 160 km northwest of Cairo, and 70 km E. S. E. of Alexandria, in Ancient Egypt, the city was the capital of Lower Egypts 7th Nome of A-ment. It stood on the banks of a canal connected the lake Mareotis with the Canopic or most westerly arm of the Nile. The city was dedicated to the Ancient Egyptian god Horus, in Greek and Roman times, it was called Hermopolis Mikra or Hermopolis Parva, which would also give it an association with Hermes, the Egyptian Thoth. As Hermopolis, the city attracted the notice of numerous ancient geographers, including Stephanus of Byzantium s. v. Strabo, Ptolemy, and it is a Roman Catholic titular see. In 1986, the population of Damanhur was 188,939, the richly cultivated Beheira province gives rise to mainly agricultural industries which include cotton ginning, potato processing, and date picking. It also has a market for cotton and rice, ahmed H. Zewail, who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1999, was born in Damanhur in 1946. Damanhur was known in the ancient Egyptian scripts by the name Dmi en Hor, later, the Egyptians reverted to the old name, represented as Temenhor, which after the Islamic conquest was reinterpreted in Arabic as Damanhur, the present name. Being located close to the Nile Delta and the northern coast of Egypt, the city gets average precipitation during winter, and rare rain during other seasons. Hail and frost are not unknown specifically during winter, a nearby town called Damityo contains the tomb of the shoemaker Yaakov Abuhatzeira, a Moroccan rabbi who died there in 1880 while on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The site is visited each year by hundreds of devotees, with protests from local inhabitants, a high court in Egypt officially removed the tomb from a list of sites of historical value, so Egyptian government protection stopped. Some Egyptians have protested against permitting Jews to enter Egypt to make the pilgrimage to Rabbi Abuhatzeiras tomb. Damanhur is the home of the character Nebamon in the book Rise of the Golden Cobra. Damanhur name is used by the artist eco-village Federation of Damanhur in northern Italy and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Smith, William, ed. article name needed. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, https, //www. facebook. com/Egy. Dam Official Facebook page for the city http, //www. damanhour. 5u. com/en. htm English script http, //www. saeednet. 4t. com live cam from damanhour S. Pétridès
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Buto
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Buto, Butus, or Butosus, now Tell El Farain and the village of Ibtu or Abtu near the city of Desouk, was an ancient city located 95 km east of Alexandria in the Nile Delta of Egypt. The city stood on the Sebennytic arm of the Nile, near its mouth and it is the modern Kem Kasir. Buto originally was two cities, Pe and Dep, which merged into one city that the Egyptians named Per-Wadjet, the goddess Wadjet was its local deity, often represented as a cobra, also considered the patron deity of Lower Egypt. Her oracle was located in her temple in that city. An annual festival held in the city celebrated Wadjet, the city also contained a sanctuary of Horus and much later, became associated with Isis. The city was an important site in the Predynastic era of Ancient Egypt that includes the developments of ten thousand years from the Paleolithic to 3100 BC. The image of Nekhbet joined Wadjet on the Uraeus that would encircle the crown of the pharaohs who ruled the unified Egypt, the Greeks coined the toponym Buto under the Ptolemaic Kingdom a dynasty that ruled from 305 to 30 BC. It served as the capital, or according to Herodian, merely the principal village of the Nile Delta, herodotus styled it the Chemmite nome, Ptolemy knew it as the Phthenothite nome, and Pliny the Elder as Ptenetha. The Greek historians record that the town was celebrated for its temple and oracle of the goddess Wadjet. A yearly feast was held there in honour of the goddess and they noted that at Buto there was also a sanctuary of Horus and of Bastet. The Greek name, Buto, is allied to that of Muth or Maut, their appellations for Isis. According to these late sources, the shrew was worshipped at Buto. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography
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Lake Mariout
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Lake Mariout, also spelled Maryut or Mariut, is a brackish lake in northern Egypt. The lake area covered 200 km² and had a canal at the beginning of the 20th century. The name derives from Mareotis or Marea, the name of the lake in ancient times and it is separated from the Mediterranean Sea by the narrow isthmus on which the city of Alexandria was built. The lake shore is home to fisheries and saltworks, as far back as the early 1900s, it was documented that salt was being refined from the western part of the lake. Some of the areas around the lake have been reclaimed for new building as the city grows. According to some records, a homonymous nome was located on the shores of this lake, the diocese was nominally restored in 1933 as Titular bishopric of Mareotes / Mareotes / Mareoten. Although technically a Latin titular see, it has had several Eastern Catholic incumbents, in 2015 a stele, resembling the Rosetta Stone and dating back some 2,200 years, was discovered in ancient ruins called Taposiris Magna Temple site at Lake Mariout. Measuring 41 inches by 25.6 inches by 7 inches, there are ancient tombs located on the shores of the lake. The fish species Nile perch lives in the lake, although it principally needs fresh water to live in, in 1939, a small lake, called the Nozha Hydrodrome was isolated from Lake Mariout and this allowed for the Nile perch to flourish there. List of Catholic dioceses in Egypt GCatholic Bishopric of Mareotes
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Mareotis
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Lake Mariout, also spelled Maryut or Mariut, is a brackish lake in northern Egypt. The lake area covered 200 km² and had a canal at the beginning of the 20th century. The name derives from Mareotis or Marea, the name of the lake in ancient times and it is separated from the Mediterranean Sea by the narrow isthmus on which the city of Alexandria was built. The lake shore is home to fisheries and saltworks, as far back as the early 1900s, it was documented that salt was being refined from the western part of the lake. Some of the areas around the lake have been reclaimed for new building as the city grows. According to some records, a homonymous nome was located on the shores of this lake, the diocese was nominally restored in 1933 as Titular bishopric of Mareotes / Mareotes / Mareoten. Although technically a Latin titular see, it has had several Eastern Catholic incumbents, in 2015 a stele, resembling the Rosetta Stone and dating back some 2,200 years, was discovered in ancient ruins called Taposiris Magna Temple site at Lake Mariout. Measuring 41 inches by 25.6 inches by 7 inches, there are ancient tombs located on the shores of the lake. The fish species Nile perch lives in the lake, although it principally needs fresh water to live in, in 1939, a small lake, called the Nozha Hydrodrome was isolated from Lake Mariout and this allowed for the Nile perch to flourish there. List of Catholic dioceses in Egypt GCatholic Bishopric of Mareotes
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Mersa Matruh
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Mersa Matruh is a seaport in Egypt, the capital of the Matrouh Governorate. It is 240 km west of Alexandria and 222 km from Sallum, another highway leads south from the town, toward the Western Desert and the oases of Siwa and Bahariya. During Ancient Egyptian times and during the reign of Alexander The Great, in Ptolemaic and Byzantine times it was known as Paraitonion, while in Roman times it was called Paraetonium. Marsa Matruh is a major tourist resort and serves as a resort for Europeans as well as Cairenes. It is served by Marsa Matruh Airport and it started as a small fishing town during Ancient Egyptian times and the reign of Alexander The Great and was named Amunia. There are ruins of a temple of Ramesses II, mersa Matruh became known as Paraitonion in the Ptolemaic era. When Roman occupation came to Egypt, the became an important harbor for trade and shipping goods. It was named Paraetonium by the Romans, during World War II, the British Armys Baggush Box was located to the east. Starting with the completion of an extension from the railhead at Fuka in February 1936, Marsa Matruh was the terminus for a single-track railway. Summers are sunny and dry, while in the months, mainly in winters, there is some rain. The city has become a destination for millions of Egyptians and foreign tourists, another source shows more precipitation and stabler average temperatures. Ruins of the Temple of the King, Pharaoh Ramesses II Drowned city of Caesar, Egyptian Fleet Anchorage which was built by the Ptolemies. The remains of the installations still stand west of the port. Coptic Chapel, built in the early Coptic age, it contains several caves bearing inscriptions, rommels Hideout, A cave, hewn in the rock, where Rommel drew up plans of his military operations. It has now turned into a military museum. The British Cemetery, Thousands upon thousands of rock-hewn tombstones stand in straight rows amidst a fenced garden, the German Cemetery, It is a fortress like memorial that was built on a height overlooking the sea. The Italian Cemetery, It is a tower fort standing on a high hill. The walls of the building are covered with marble, ageebah Beach, About 28 km west of Marsa Matruh downtown, it is distinguished by its numerous natural cave Al-Obayed Beach, About 20 km west of Marsa Matruh downtown Rommel Bay
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Exarch
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In the Byzantine Empire, an exarch was a governor with extended authority over a province at some distance from the capital Constantinople. The prevailing situation frequently involved him in military operations, in the civil administration of the Byzantine Roman Empire the exarch was, as stated above, the viceroy of a large and important province. After the dissolution of the Western Empire in the fifth century. Justinian I reconquered North Africa, Italy, Dalmatia and finally parts of Spain for the Eastern Roman Empire, however, this put an incredible strain on the Empires limited resources. Subsequent emperors would not surrender the land to remedy the situation. Thus the stage was set for Emperor Maurice to establish the Exarchates to deal with the evolving situation of the provinces. In Italy the Lombards were the opposition to Byzantine power. In North Africa the Amazigh or Berber princes were ascendant due to Roman weakness outside the coastal cities, the problems associated with many enemies on various fronts forced the imperial government to decentralize and devolve power to the former provinces. The term Exarch most commonly refers to the Exarch of Italy, the exarchates seat was at Ravenna, whence it is known as the Exarchate of Ravenna. Ravenna remained the seat of the Exarch until the revolt of 727 over Iconoclasm, thereafter, the growing menace of the Lombards and the split between eastern and western Christendom that Iconoclasm caused made the position of the Exarch more and more untenable. The last Exarch was killed by the Lombards in 751, a second exarchate was created by Maurice to administer northern Africa, formerly a separate praetorian prefecture, the islands of the western Mediterranean and the Byzantine possessions in Spain. The capital of the Exarchate of Africa was Carthage, the exarchate proved both financially and militarily strong, and survived until the Arab Muslim conquest of Carthage in 698. The term exarch entered ecclesiastical language at first for a metropolitan with jurisdiction not only for the area that was his as a metropolitan, the advance of Constantinople put an end to these exarchates, which fell back to the state of ordinary metropolitan sees. But the title of exarch was still used for any Metropolitan. Thus, since the Church of Cyprus was declared autocephalous, its Primate received the title of Exarch of Cyprus, the short-lived medieval Churches of Peć, Ohrid and Tirnova, were governed previously by exarchs, though these prelates assumed the title of patriarch. On the same principle the Archbishop of Mount Sinai and Raithu is an exarch, though in case, as in that of Cyprus. When the Bulgarians reconstituted their national Church in 1870, they obtained from the Ottoman authorities for its head the title of Exarch, not the highest, that of Patriarch. The Bulgarian Exarch, who resided at Constantinople, was then the most famous bearer of the title, adherents throughout Macedonia were called exarchists, as opposed to the Greek patriarchists
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Metropolis
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The term is Greek and means the mother city of a colony, that is, the city which sent out settlers. This was later generalized to a city regarded as a center of an activity, or any large. A big city belonging to an urban agglomeration, but which is not the core of that agglomeration, is not generally considered a metropolis. The plural of the word is most commonly metropolises, although the correct plural is metropoles, in the ancient past, metropolis was the designation for a city or state of origin of a colony. Many large cities founded by ancient civilizations have been considered important world metropoles of their times due to their large populations, some of these ancient metropoles survived until the modern days and are among the worlds oldest continuously inhabited cities. This usage equates the province with the diocese or episcopal see, in modern usage the word has come to refer to a metropolitan area, a set of adjacent and interconnected cities clustered around a major urban center. In this sense, metropolitan usually means spanning the whole metropolis or proper of a metropolis, the concept of a global city is of a city that has a direct and tangible effect on global affairs through socioeconomic means. The term has become familiar, because of the rise of globalization. An attempt to define and categorize world cities by financial criteria was made by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, the study ranked cities based on their provision of advanced producer services such as accountancy, advertising, finance and law. The inventory identifies three levels of cities and several sub-ranks. A metropolis is not necessarily a global city—or, being one, it not be among the top-ranking—due to its standards of living, development. A metropolis that is also a city is a global metropolis. Cairo and Alexandria are considered Egypts biggest metropolis, lagos is Nigerias biggest metropolis city. In South Africa, a municipality or Category A municipality is a municipality which executes all the functions of local government for a conurbation. This is by contrast to areas which are rural, where the local government is divided into district municipalities. There are eight municipalities in South Africa. In the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh, there are eleven metropolitan areas, Dhaka North, Dhaka South, Gazipur Chittagong, Rajshahi, Khulna, Sylhet, Barisal, lands are highly priced and residents are considered to have a better urban lifestyle. Special police departments are allotted for the cities, and there are city corporations for which mayors are elected for five-year regimes
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Libu
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The Libu were an Ancient Libyan tribe of an Amazigh origin, from which the name Libya derives. Their occupation of Ancient Libya is first attested in Egyptian language texts from the New Kingdom, the earliest occurrence is in a Ramesses II inscription. There were no vowels in the Egyptian script, the name Libu is written as LBW or RBW in Egyptian hieroglyphs. In the Great Karnak Inscription Merneptah describes how hostilities between Egypt and Libya broke out and how the Libyans were defeated. Ramesses III defeated the Libyans in the 5th year of his reign, Libu appears as an ethnic name on the Merneptah Stele, also known as the Israel Stele. This name Libu was taken over by the Greeks of Cyrenaica, geographically, the name of this tribe was adopted by the Greeks for Cyrenaica as well as for northwestern Africa in general. In the neo-Punic inscriptions, Libu was written as Lby for the masculine noun, the name supposedly was used as an ethnic name in those inscriptions. In the Western Nile Delta, some time during the 22nd Dynasty of Egypt flourished a realm of the Libu led by Great Chiefs of the Libu and those rulers soon formed a dynasty, and they often had local Chiefs of the Ma as their subordinates. Here follows the succession of the known Great Chiefs of the Libu and they used to date their monuments following the regnal years of the contemporary pharaoh of the 22nd Dynasty
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Derna, Libya
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Derna /ˈdɜːrnə/ is a port city in eastern Libya. It has a population of 100, 000–150,000 and it was the seat of one of the wealthiest provinces in the Barbary States, and remains the capital of the Derna District, with a much smaller area. Derna has a unique environment among Libyan cities, as it lies between mountains, the Mediterranean Sea, and the desert. The city is home to people of mixed origins. The city was also the location of the famous Battle of Derna, occurring during the First Barbary War, the battle was fought between a force of roughly 500 US Marines and Mediterranean mercenaries and four or five thousand Barbary troops. Parts of the city were taken over by Islamic State of Iraq, in June 2015 Shura Council of Mujahideen in Derna defeated ISIL and took control over the town. Darnis and Darne were the Greek forms of the name for the city, while the form Dardanis is sometimes found, it is erroneous. Under Rome the city was referred to as Darnis and Derna, under Islam, it was known as Derneh or Terneh. In the Hellenistic period the ancient city of Darnis was part of the Libyan Pentapolis, under Rome, it became a civil and later the religious metropolis of the province of Libya Secunda, or Libya Inferior, that is, the Marmarica region. The names of some of its bishops are found in extant documents. Piso was one of the Eastern bishops who withdrew from the Council of Sardica, early 5th-century Dioscorus is known because of a dispute he had with the bishop of Erythrum. Daniel took part in the Council of Ephesus in 431, in addition, John Moschus speaks of a bishop Thedodorus of Darnis as having had a vision of Saint Leo the Great in the mid-5th century. No longer a residential bishopric, Darnis is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see, the city was resettled by the Islamic refugees from Spain in 1493 on the site of the ancient settlement. This in turn, in 1875, became the vilayet of Cyrenaica, in the 1850s it had an estimated 4,500 inhabitants, who lived by agriculture, fishing and the coastal trade. The oldest mosque in Derna is Al-masjeed al-ateeq, or the Old Mosque, restored by wali Mahmoud Karamanli in 1772 and this kind of vault was in use due to lack of some materials, like timber or stone in the region of Cyrenaica. There is another mosque, named Masjeed az-zawiyah, built in 1846, the French admiral Gantheaume landed at Derna in June 1800 in an attempt to reinforce Napoleon in Egypt by bringing troops overland, but was rebuffed by the local garrison. Derna was the location of the 1805 Battle of Derne, in which forces under U. S, lieutenant and former Consul to Tripoli William Eaton—who had marched 500 miles across the Libyan Desert from Alexandria—captured the city as part of the First Barbary War. On 16 October 1911 Italian troops occupied Derna during the Italo-Turkish War, on 30 January 1941, during the Second World War, Australian troops captured Derna from the Italians in the North African Campaign
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Tripolitania
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Tripolitania /trᵻpɒlᵻˈteɪniə/ or Tripolitana is a historic region and former province of Libya. Tripolitania was a separate Italian colony from 1927 to 1934, from 1934 to 1963, Tripolitania was one of three administrative divisions within Italian Libya and the Kingdom of Libya, alongside Cyrenaica to the east and Fezzan to the south. Because the city and the shabiyah are nowadays almost coextensive, the term Tripolitania has more historical than contemporary value, the system of administrative divisions that included Tripolitania was abolished in the early 1970s in favor of a system of smaller-size municipalities or baladiyat. The baladiyat system was changed many times and has lately become the Shabiyat system. The region that was Tripolitania is now composed of several smaller baladiyat or shabiyat – see administrative divisions in Libya, the city of Oea, on the site of modern Tripoli, was founded by the Phoenicians in the 7th century BC. It was conquered by the Greek rulers of Cyrenaica, who were in turn displaced by the Carthaginians, the Greek name Τρίπολις three cities referred to Oea, Sabratha and Leptis Magna. The Roman Republic captured Tripolitania in 146 BC, and the area prospered during the Roman Empire period, the Latin name Regio Tripolitania dates to the 3rd century. The Vandals took over in 435, and were in turn supplanted by the offensive of the Eastern Roman Empire in the 530s. In the 7th century, Tripolitania was conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate, and was inherited by its descendants the Umayyads, the Fatimids, established a Caliphate from Tunisia to Syria. In the 1140s, the Normans of Sicily invaded Tripoli, but were ousted by the Almohad Caliphate in 1158, emir Abu Zakariya, an Almohad vassal, established an independent state in Tunisia in 1229 and took control of Tripolitania shortly after. The Hafsids would control the region until the Ottoman conquest of 1553, Ottoman Tripolitania extended beyond the region of Tripolitania proper, also including Cyrenaica. Tripolitania became effectively independent under the rulers of the Karamanli dynasty from 1711 until Ottoman control was re-imposed by Mahmud II in 1835, Ottoman rule persisted until 1911–12, when it was captured by Italy in the Italo-Turkish War. Italy officially granted autonomy after the war, but gradually occupied the region, after World War I, an Arab Republic, Al-Jumhuriya al-Trabulsiya, or Tripolitanian Republic, declared the independence of Tripolitania from Italian Libya. The proclamation of the Tripolitanian Republic in autumn 1918 was followed by a declaration of independence at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. This was the first formally declared republican form of government in the Arab world, but it gained support from international powers. Italy managed to establish control over Libya by 1930. Originally administered as part of a colony, Italian Tripolitania was a separate colony from 26 June 1927 to 3 December 1934. The Italian fascists constructed the Marble Arch as a form of a triumphal arch at the border between Tripolitani and Cyrenaica near the coast
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Metropolitan bishop
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Before the establishment of patriarchs, metropolitan was the highest episcopal rank in the Eastern rites of the Church. They presided over synods of bishops, and were granted privileges by canon law. The Early Church structure generally followed the Roman imperial practice, with one bishop ruling each city, the bishop of the provincial capital, the metropolitan, enjoyed certain rights over other bishops in the province, later called suffragans. The other bishops are known as suffragan bishops, the metropolitan is obliged to request the pallium, a symbol of the power that, in communion with the Church of Rome, he possesses over his ecclesiastical province. This holds even if he had the pallium in another metropolitan see and it is the responsibility of the metropolitan, with the consent of the majority of the suffragan bishops to call a provincial council, decide where to convene it, and determine the agenda. It is his prerogative to preside over the provincial council, no provincial council can be called if the metropolitan see is vacant. As of April 2006,508 archdioceses were headed by metropolitan archbishops,27 archbishops lead an extant archdiocese, but were not metropolitans, see also Catholic Church hierarchy for the distinctions. In those Eastern Catholic Churches that are headed by a patriarch, similarly, a metropolitan has the right to ordain and enthrone the bishops of his province. The metropolitan is to be commemorated in the liturgies celebrated within his province, a major archbishop is defined as the metropolitan of a certain see who heads an autonomous Eastern Church not of patriarchal rank. The canon law of such a Church differs only slightly from that regarding a patriarchal Church, there are also autonomous Eastern Catholic Churches consisting of a single province and headed by a metropolitan. In his autonomous Church it is for him to ordain and enthrone bishops, in the Eastern Orthodox Churches, the title of metropolitan is used variously, in terms of rank and jurisdiction. In terms of rank, in some Eastern Orthodox Churches metropolitans are ranked above archbishops in precedence, primates of autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Churches below patriarchal rank are generally designated as archbishops. In the Greek Orthodox Churches, archbishops are ranked above metropolitans in precedence, some Eastern Orthodox Churches have functioning metropolitans on the middle level of church administration. In Romanian Orthodox Church there are six regional metropolitans who are the chairmen of their respective synods of bishops, for example, Metropolitan of Oltenia has regional jurisdiction over four dioceses. On the other hand, in some Eastern Orthodox Churches title of metropolitan is only honorary, in Serbian Orthodox Church, honorary title of metropolitan is given to diocesan bishops of some important historical sees. For example, diocesan bishop of the Eparchy of Montenegro and the Littoral is given the title of metropolitan. Diocesan bishop of the Eparchy of Dabar-Bosnia is also given the title of metropolitan. Non-canonical Eastern Orthodox Churches generally use metropolitan title according to traditions of usage in Churches from which they were split
28.
Pentapolis
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A pentapolis, from the Greek words πέντε, five and πόλις, city is a geographic and/or institutional grouping of five cities. Cities in the ancient world probably formed such groups for political, commercial and military reasons, the Philistine Pentapolis, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, Gath, and Gaza, all combined to make Philistia. The Doric – or Dorian Pentapolis, Kos, on the island of the name in the Aegean Sea, Cnidus, in Caria on the west coast of Asia Minor, Lindus, Ialysus and Camirus. The Pontic Pentapolis, Apollonia, Callatis, Mesembria, Odessos, the Western Pentapolis, five main Greek colonies that came to be in the Roman province of Libya Superior, the western part of Cyrenaica until Diocletians Tetrarchy reform in AD296. The most important was Cyrene and its port Apollonia, Ptolemais, Barca, Balagrae and Berenice and this is the Pentapolis that is referenced in the official title of the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria and the Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church. In Italy there were, an early pentapolis including, Ravenna, Forlì, Forlimpopoli, Classe, Caesarea. A later, medieval Duchy of the Pentapolis on the Adriatic coast east of Tuscany and north of the duchy of Spoleto, including the cities of Rimini, Pesaro, Fano, Sinigaglia. It was part of the core of the Byzantine Exarchate of Ravenna, later, after the fall of the Exarchate, it was transformed into the March of Ancona The Cinque Ports in England – the five being Hastings, New Romney, Hythe, Dover, and Sandwich. The Cinque Terre are five rustic coastal towns in Liguria that are now organized into the Cinque Terre National Park, the National Capital Region consists of five cities, namely, Delhi, Gurgaon, Ghaziabad, Noida and Faridabad. The Five Boroughs of New York City, which were separately governed city-counties until the 1874 and 1898 annexations, the Quad Cities of Iowa and Illinois that share cultural institutions and infrastructure. There are five qsur walled villages located on rocky outcrops along the Wəd Mzab collectively known as the Pentapolis and they are Ghardaïa Tagherdayt, the principal settlement today, Beni Isguen At Isjen, Melika At Mlishet, Bounoura At Bunur, and El Atteuf Tajnint. Adding the more recent settlements of Bérianne and El Guerrara, the Mzab Heptapolis is completed, Pentapolis Monopoli Tripolis Tetrapolis Doric Hexapolis Heptapolis Decapolis many occurrences in the Catholic Encyclopaedia Westermann Großer Atlas zur Weltgeschichte
29.
Cyrene, Libya
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Cyrene was an ancient Greek and Roman city near present-day Shahhat, Libya. It was the oldest and most important of the five Greek cities in the region and it gave eastern Libya the classical name Cyrenaica that it has retained to modern times. Cyrene lies in a valley in the Jebel Akhdar uplands. The city was named after a spring, Kyre, which the Greeks consecrated to Apollo and it was also the seat of the Cyrenaics, a famous school of philosophy in the 3rd century BC, founded by Aristippus, a disciple of Socrates. It was then nicknamed the Athens of Africa, Grinus, son of Aesanius a descendant of Theras, and king of the island of Thera, had visited the Oracle and offered a hecatomb to the Oracle on sundry matters. The Oracle had offered the advice to found a new city in Libya, many years had passed and the advice was not taken, and Thera had succumbed to a horrific drought and all of the crops and trees had perished. Not knowing how to get to Libya they sent a messenger to Crete to find someone to lead them on their journey and they found a dealer in purple dyes named Corobius. He had once traveled to an island across from Libya called Platea, Grinus and Corobius sailed to Platea, when they reached their destination they left Corobius with months of supplies and Grinus went back to Thera to collect men to settle the newly made colony. After two years of settling the colony they had success and went back to the Oracle to get advice. The Oracle had repeated her advice to move directly to the country of Libya instead of across from Libya, so they moved to a place called Aziris. They settled there for six years, and were successful until the Libyans visited the settlement of Aziris to convince the people to move further inland. They were swayed by the Libyans to move and settled into what is now Cyrene, traditional details concerning the founding of the city are contained in Herodotus Histories IV. Cyrene promptly became the town of ancient Libya and established commercial relations with all the Greek cities. Soon after 460 BC it became a republic, in 413 BC, during the Peloponnesian War, Cyrene supplied Spartan forces with two triremes and pilots. After the death of Alexander the Great of Macedon, the Cyrenian republic became subject to the Ptolemaic dynasty, ophelas, the general who occupied the city in Ptolemy Is name, ruled the city almost independently until his death, when Ptolemys son-in-law Magas received governorship of the territory. In 276 BC Magas crowned himself king and declared de facto independence, the invasion was unsuccessful and in 250 BC, after Magas death, the city was reabsorbed into Ptolemaic Egypt. Cyrenaica became part of the Ptolemaic empire controlled from Alexandria, in 74 BC the territory was formally transformed into a Roman province. The inhabitants of Cyrene at the time of Sulla were divided into four classes, citizens, farmers, resident aliens, the ruler of the town, Ptolemy Apion, bequeathed it to the Romans, but it kept its self-government
30.
Apollonia, Cyrenaica
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Apollonia in Cyrenaica was founded by Greek colonists and became a significant commercial centre in the southern Mediterranean. It served as the harbour of Cyrene,20 km to the southwest. D and it became the capital of the Roman province of Libya Superior or Libya Pentapolitana. The city became known as Sozusa, which explains the name of Marsa Susa or Susa. Sozusa was a see and is included in the Catholic Churchs list of titular sees. The existence of buildings in the sea was noted by Beechey, with rough drawings. The results of work were published, complete with maps. Carlo Beltrame and colleagues have made an underwater photographic survey of some of the buildings. The Crete earthquake and tsunami of 21 July 365 AD apparently caused extensive damage to the city, the Apollonia Museum houses many artifacts found on the ancient site. Apollonia is particularly known for its ruins of three churches dating from the Byzantine period, the Palace was last used as the Byzantine Dukes Palace and contains over 100 rooms. The previous use was as a Roman military commanders house, the well-preserved Greek theatre stands facing the sea outside the old city walls. The cavea has 28 seat levels, barca Ptolemais, Cyrenaica This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. article name needed. Proceedings of an Expedition to Explore the North African coast, geographical Magazine, v.31, pp. 497–508. Doubleday, New York,222 pp, New English Library, London, flemming, N. C. and Webb, C. O,1986. Tectonic and eustatic coastal changes during the last 10,000 years derived from archaeological data, december, Suppl – Bd62, p.129
31.
Ptolemais, Cyrenaica
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Ptolemais was one of the five cities that formed the Pentapolis of Cyrenaica, the others being Cyrene, Euesperides, Tauchira/Teuchira, and Apollonia. Its ruins are at a village in modern Libya called Tolmeita. The city was founded by and named one of the kings of Ptolemaic Egypt. However, the term Pentapolis also continued to be used, Ptolemais became a Roman possession in 96 BC. It was soon included in the Roman province of Creta et Cyrenaica, with Diocletians alteration of the administrative structure, Ptolemais became the capital of the province of Libya Superior or Libya Pentapolis. It later decayed and was replaced as capital of the province by Apollonia, the 365 Crete earthquake struck the region and destroyed all the five major cities of the Pentapolis. Ptolemais survived the tragedy in relatively good condition and it served as capital of Cyrenaica until 428. The city was destroyed by the Vandals after they established their kingdom in 439, during the reign of Justinian I the city was rebuilt, but it never regained its powers and was again destroyed by the Arabs in the 7th century. Buried in the sands, the ruins have been remarkably well preserved. Excavation of the began in the 1930s, revealing a planned city of rectangular shape, some 1650 by 1400 metres. It held a hippodrome, an amphitheatre and three theatres, the smallest of which, used as an odeon, was adapted for water spectacles in the 4th or 5th century. These were rediscovered during the Italian occupation, when they were found to be used as a place for rebels. West of the city stands a conspicuous and tower-like Hellenistic mausoleum, there are many chamber tombs in the quarries east and west of the city, which have yielded a few tombstones and numerous inscriptions. Important sculptures and inscriptions have also found within the city. In 2001 an archaeological mission from Warsaw University started excavations on the site, in May 2011, a number of objects excavated from Ptolemais in 1937 and held in the vault of the National Commercial Bank in Benghazi were stolen. Looters tunnelled into the vault and broke into two safes that held the artefacts which were part of the so-called Benghazi Treasure, the objects have not been traced. Another early bishop of Ptolemais is Saint Theodorus, martyred during the anti-Christian persecutions, the First Council of Nicaea confirmed the custom whereby the bishop of Alexandria held authority over the churches in the Pentapolis, although they were not situated in the same Roman province. Accordingly, none of the bishoprics in the Pentapolis was a metropolitan see for the others, Ptolemais was the home of Arius, after whom the Arianism condemned at Nicaea in 325 was named
32.
Benghazi
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Benghazi /bɛnˈɡɑːzi/ is the second most populous city in Libya and the largest in Cyrenaica. The city was also provisional capital of the National Transitional Council and this creates a constant atmosphere of rivalry and sensitivities between Benghazi and Tripoli, and between Cyrenaica and Tripolitania. The population was 670,797 at the 2006 census, on 15 February 2011, an uprising against the government of Muammar Gaddafi occurred in the city. The revolts spread by 17 February to Bayda, Tobruk, Ajdabya, Al Marj in the East and Zintan, Zawiya in the West, Benghazi was taken by Gaddafi opponents on 21 February, who founded the National Transitional Council. The ancient Greek city that existed within the modern day boundaries of Benghazi was founded around 525 BC, at the time, Euesperides was most likely founded by people from Cyrene or Barce, which was located on the edge of a lagoon which opened from the sea. At the time, this area may have been enough to receive small sailing vessels. The oldest coins minted in the city back to 480 BC. One side of coins has an engraving of Delphi. The other side is an engraving of a plant, once the symbol of trade from Cyrenaica because of its use as a rich seasoning. The city was in territory and was surrounded by inhospitable tribes. One of the Cyrenean kings whose fate is connected with the city is Arcesilaus IV and this proved ineffective, since when the king fled to Euesperides during the anticipated revolution, he was assassinated, thus terminating the almost 200-year rule of the Battiad dynasty. After the marriage around the middle of the 3rd century BC of Ptolemy III to Berenice, daughter of the Cyrenean Governor Magas, Euesperides became Berenice and the change of name also involved a relocation. Its desertion was probably due to the silting up of the lagoons, Berenice, the Greek colony had lasted from the 6th to the mid-3rd centuries BC. Modern Benghazi, on the Gulf of Sidra, lies a little southwest of the site of the ancient Greek city of Berenice or Berenicis or Bernici, the new city was later given the name Hesperides, in reference to the Hesperides, the guardians of the mythic western paradise. The name may have referred to green oases in low-lying areas in the nearby coastal plain. Benghazi later became a Roman city and prospered for 600 years, in its more prosperous period, Berenice became a Christian bishopric. The first of its bishops whose name is recorded in extant documents is Ammon, dathes was at the First Council of Nicaea in 325, and Probatius at a synod held in Constantinople in 394. No longer a residential bishopric, Berenice is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see, in the 13th century, the small settlement became an important player in the trade growing up between Genoese merchants and the tribes of the hinterland
33.
Tocra
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Tocra, Taucheira, Tukrah or El Agouriya, is a town on the coast of the Marj District in the Cyrenaica region of northeastern Libya, founded by Cyrene. It lay 200 stadia west of Ptolemais, today it is a coastal town 25 kilometres west of Marj. Founded by the Greeks and considered by some to be part of the Pentapolis of Cyrenaica, at a period it became a Roman colony. Taucheira was particularly noted for the worship of Cybele, in honour of whom an annual festival was celebrated, under the Ptolemies it obtained the name of Arsinoe, after Arsinoe II of Egypt, named by her brother and husband, Ptolemy Philadelphus. Later it became known as Tocra or Tukrah or Tokara, and it is the same town erroneously written Τάριχα by Diodorus. Agouriya is the given to the city by the deposed dictator Muammar Gaddafi. The towns largest tribe is the Barghathi tribe, who claim the town their own, there are tribal rivalries with the Abdali tribe. Both the Barghathi and Abdali tribes belong to the larger umbrella Agouri tribe, the renaming of the town by Gaddafi was to play on the rivalry between the two tribes. After the 17 Feb revolution, inhabitants of the town went back to the old name, on a relatively small scale, residents of the town grow watermelon, cantaloupe, grapes, almonds, and tomatoes, but it is most famous for its figs. List of cities in Libya This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Smith, William. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography
34.
Tripoli
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Tripoli is the capital city and the largest city of Libya. Tripoli, with its area, has a population of about 1.1 million people. The city is located in the part of Libya on the edge of the desert, on a point of rocky land projecting into the Mediterranean. Tripoli includes the Port of Tripoli and the countrys largest commercial and it is also the site of the University of Tripoli. The vast Bab al-Azizia barracks, which includes the family estate of Muammar Gaddafi, is also located in the city. Colonel Gaddafi largely ruled the country from his residence in this barracks, Tripoli was founded in the 7th century BC by the Phoenicians, who named it Oea. Due to the long history, there are many sites of archaeological significance in Tripoli. Tripoli may also refer to the shabiyah, the Tripoli District, Tripoli is also known as Tripoli-of-the-West, to distinguish it from its Phoenician sister city Tripoli, Lebanon known in Arabic as Ṭarābulus al-Sham meaning Levantine Tripoli. It is affectionately called The Mermaid of the Mediterranean, describing its turquoise waters, Tripoli English pronunciation, /ˈtrɪpəli/ is a Greek name that means Three Cities, introduced in Western European languages through the Italian Tripoli. In Arabic, طرابلس it is called Ṭarābulus, compare Sanskrit, tri meaning the number 3, and pura meaning a fortress, castle, city or town. Hence, in Sanskrit Tripura also means Three Cities, the city then passed into the hands of the rulers of Cyrenaica, although the Carthaginians later wrested it from the Greeks. By the later half of the 2nd century BC it belonged to the Romans, who included it in their province of Africa, and gave it the name of Regio Syrtica. Around the beginning of the 3rd century AD, it known as the Regio Tripolitana. It was probably raised to the rank of a province by Septimius Severus. In spite of centuries of Roman habitation, the only visible Roman remains, apart from scattered columns, the fact that Tripoli has been continuously inhabited, unlike e. g. Following the conquest, Tripoli was ruled by dynasties based in Cairo, Egypt, for some time it was a part of the Berber Almohad empire and of the Hafsids kingdom. It was part of the Ottoman Empire between the 16th and 19th centuries, finding themselves in very hostile territory, the Knights enhanced the citys walls and other defenses. Though built on top of a number of buildings, much of the earliest defensive structures of the Tripoli castle are attributed to the Knights of St John
35.
Misurata
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With a population of about 281,000, Misrata is the third-largest city in Libya, after Tripoli and Benghazi. It is the city of the Misurata District and has been called the trade capital of Libya. The harbor is at Qasr Ahmad, the name Misurata derives from the Misrata tribe, a section of the larger Berber Hawwara confederacy, whose homeland in Roman and early Arab times was coastal Tripolitania. And the city of Misurata is one of the stations that have been built by the Phoenicians. The flag then by the name of Thubactis Misurata and know that name in relation to the Berber tribe of Misurata, modern Misurata was established around the 7th century AD during the beginning of modern Libyas rule by the Caliphate. It had been a major caravan center named Thubaqt, some contemporary sources claim the town existed prior to Islamic rule, during the Roman Empire era and that its initial Arabic name derived from its Roman name Thubactis. Nonetheless the Roman town was located at some point on the oasis upon which the city sits. The two common identifications are at the eastern and western anchorages of modern Misurata or south and inland of the city, in any case, in the 7th century, it served as a caravan supply center and an important port. The Misrata tribe, a section of the larger Berber Hawwara confederacy, inhabited the region of Tripolitania during the Roman. The region of Tripolitania, which included Misurata, came under the regency of the Ottoman Empire in 1551. By the beginning of the 19th century, Misrata had been established as a center for the Trans-Saharan trade route, where caravans carrying gold, leather. The city was filled with thick areas of vegetable gardens while the surrounding countryside included fields of wheat, barley, date palms, misratas artisans also expanded on the citys ancient carpet industry for which it was regionally renowned. Although Misurata contained a well-built harbor, most of its trade was overland because the city of Benghazi to the east served as the preferable substitute for maritime shipping. As a result of the abolition of slavery and increasing European colonial influence in Sub-Saharan Africa, Trans-Saharan trade declined, however, the decline in Trans-Saharan trade saw the establishment of weekly and permanent markets in the city, replacing the seasonal markets associated with long-distance trade. Farmers concentrated on growing crops, relying on market relations to provide income for their families, instead of subsistence farming. Bedouins increasingly abandoned their nomadic lifestyle and began to settle into permanent dwellings within the city limits, to cope with an rising population due to immigration from the surrounding areas, Misrata witnessed a construction boom in the late 19th century. Two clans, the Muntasir and Adgham, dominated the political, social and economic aspects of Misrata and they made their income from commerce and protected their wealth by cooperating with the Ottoman provincial authorities. Both had extended families and economic holdings not just in Misrata, after their eventual defeat in 1858, they were left in an inferior position to that of the Muntasirs
36.
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
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ISIL gained global prominence in early 2014 when it drove Iraqi government forces out of key cities in its Western Iraq offensive, followed by its capture of Mosul and the Sinjar massacre. This group has been designated a terrorist organisation by the United Nations, ISIL is widely known for its videos of beheadings of both soldiers and civilians, including journalists and aid workers, and its destruction of cultural heritage sites. The United Nations holds ISIL responsible for human rights abuses and war crimes, ISIL originated as Jamaat al-Tawhid wal-Jihad in 1999, which pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda and participated in the Iraqi insurgency following the 2003 invasion of Iraq by Western forces. The group proclaimed itself a caliphate and began referring to itself as Islamic State or IS in June 2014. As a caliphate, it claims religious, political, and military authority over all Muslims worldwide and its adoption of the name Islamic State and its idea of a caliphate have been widely criticised, with the United Nations, various governments, and mainstream Muslim groups rejecting its statehood. As of 2015, ISIL is estimated to have a budget of more than USD$1 billion. In April 2013, having expanded into Syria, the group adopted the name ad-Dawlah al-Islāmiyah fī l-ʿIrāq wa-sh-Shām, while the use of either one or the other acronym has been the subject of debate, the distinction between the two and its relevance has been considered not so great. Of greater relevance is the name Daesh, which is an acronym of ISILs Arabic name al-Dawlah al-Islamīyah fī al-ʻIrāq wa-al-Shām. This name has been used by ISILs Arabic-speaking detractors, although – and to a certain extent because – it is considered derogatory, as it resembles the Arabic words Daes. Within areas under its control, ISIL considers use of the name Daesh punishable by flogging or cutting out the tongue, in late June 2014, the group renamed itself ad-Dawlah al-Islāmiyah, declaring itself a worldwide caliphate. The name Islamic State and the claim to be a caliphate have been widely rejected, with the UN, various governments. Frances Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said This is a terrorist group, I do not recommend using the term Islamic State because it blurs the lines between Islam, Muslims, and Islamists. The Arabs call it Daesh and I will be calling them the Daesh cutthroats, the group is very sensitive about its name. They will cut your tongue out even if you call them ISIS – you have to say Islamic State, the Islamic State is mocked on social media websites such as Twitter and YouTube, with the use of hashtags, mock recruiting ads, fake news articles and YouTube videos. ISIL is a theocracy, proto-state and a Salafi or Wahhabi group and it follows an extremist interpretation of Islam, promotes religious violence, and regards Muslims who do not agree with its interpretations as infidels or apostates. According to some observers, ISIL emerged from the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood and it adheres to global jihadist principles and follows the hard-line ideology of al-Qaeda and many other modern-day jihadist groups. However, other sources trace the roots to Wahhabism. For their guiding principles, the leaders of the Islamic State, are open and clear about their almost exclusive commitment to the Wahhabi movement of Sunni Islam
37.
Coptic diaspora
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The Coptic diaspora consists of Copts who live outside of their primary area of residence within parts of present-day Egypt, Libya and Sudan. The number of Copts outside Egypt has sharply increased since the 1960s, the largest Coptic diaspora populations are in the United States, in Canada and in Australia, but Copts have a presence in many other countries. Copts in Egypt make up about 5-20% of the population, Copts in Sudan make up about half a million or 1% of Sudanese population. There are about 60,000 Copts in Libya, making up the majority of that countrys Christian community, there are about 60,000 Copts in Libya, 1% of Libyan population, making up the majority of that countrys Christian community. Outside of the traditional Coptic areas in Egypt, Sudan and Libya, smaller communities of Copts exist in Australia and in Canada. Smaller communities exist in Britain, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, in 2009 one scholar placed the total Coptic population of North America at more than 500,000. There is also a Coptic presence in Lebanon and Jordan, and well as the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, there is also a Coptic presence in the sub-Saharan African countries of Zambia, Kenya, Zaire, Zimbabwe, Namibia, and South Africa. The Coptic diaspora began primarily in the 1950s and was driven by the result of growing Islamization in Egypt, after Gamal Abdel Nasser rose to power, economic and social conditions deteriorated and many wealthier Egyptians, especially Copts, emigrated to Europe and the United States. Emigration of Egyptian Copts increased under Anwar al-Sadat and under Hosni Mubarak, many Copts are university graduates in the professions, such as medicine and engineering
38.
Christianity in Libya
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Christianity is a minority religion in Libya. Since Roman times it has always been present in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, the largest Christian group in Libya is the Coptic Orthodox Church, with a population of 60,000. The Coptic Church is known to have roots in Libya long before the Arabs advanced westward from Egypt into Libya. However, the Roman Catholics have a number as well. Orthodox communities other than that of the Egyptian Copts include the Russian Orthodox, Serbian Orthodox, there is one Anglican congregation in Tripoli, made up mostly of African immigrant workers, that belongs to the Egyptian Anglican diocese. The Anglican bishop of Libya has his seat in Cairo, there is also a priest in Sabha. There are relatively peaceful relations between Christians and Muslims in Libya, however, there are restrictions for Christian religious activity. It is prohibited to proselytize Muslims, even though a man must convert to Islam if he wants to marry a Muslim woman. Currently, there are 60,000 Copts in Libya, as they have roots in North Africa. Synesius was raised to the episcopate by Theophilus, patriarch of Alexandria, the Council of Nicaea in 325 made Cyrenaica an ecclesiastical province of the See of Alexandria. The Pope of Alexandria to this day includes the Pentapolis in his title as an area within his jurisdiction, the Coptic congregations in several countries were under the ancient Eparchy of the Western Pentapolis, which was part of the Coptic Orthodox Church for centuries until the thirteenth century. This was also a part of the restructuring of the Church as a whole and they are currently three Coptic Orthodox Churches in Libya, one in Tripoli, Libya, one in Benghazi, Libya, and one in Misrata, Libya. There are about 50,000 Roman Catholics, mostly Italian Libyans, before World War II the number of Catholics increased in Libya due to Italian colonialism. The Catholic Cathedral of Tripoli was converted to a mosque, Roman Catholic Vicariates Apostolic exist in Benghazi, Derna and Tripoli. There is a Prefecture Apostolic in Misrata, there are two Bishops, one in Tripoli. and one in Benghazi. These churches are primarily worship groups who gather together every Friday, though these groups are not officially approved by the government of Libya, they practice their faith without any interference from the government. On January 12,2015, twenty-one Coptic Christians were abducted by forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. On February 15,2015 those twenty-one Christians were executed by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant Shown in a video A Message Signed with Blood to the Nation of the Cross
39.
Copts in Sudan
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Copts in Sudan may refer to people born in or residing in Sudan of full or partial Coptic origin. Sudan has a native Coptic minority, although many Copts in Sudan are descended from more recent Coptic immigrants from Egypt, Copts in Sudan live mostly in northern cities, including Al Obeid, Atbara, Dongola, Khartoum, Omdurman, Port Sudan, and Wad Medani. They number up to 500,000, or slightly over 1% of the Sudanese population, due to their advanced education, their role in the life of the country has been more significant than their numbers suggest. They have occasionally faced forced conversion to Islam, resulting in their emigration, modern immigration of Copts to Sudan peaked in the early 19th century, and they generally received a tolerant welcome there. However, this was interrupted by a decade of persecution under Mahdist rule at the end of the 19th century, as a result of this persecution, many were forced to relinquish their faith, adopt Islam, and intermarry with the native Sudanese. Proficiency in business and administration made them a privileged minority, however, the return of militant Islam in the mid-1960s and subsequent demands by radicals for an Islamic constitution prompted Copts to join in public opposition to religious rule. Gaafar Nimeirys introduction of Islamic Sharia law in 1983 began a new phase of treatment of Copts. After the overthrow of Nimeiry, Coptic leaders supported a candidate in the 1986 elections. However, when the National Islamic Front overthrew the government of Sadiq al-Mahdi with the help of the military. Hundreds of Copts were dismissed from the service and judiciary. In February 1991, a Coptic pilot working for Sudan Airways was executed for possession of foreign currency. Before his execution, he had offered amnesty and money if he converted to Islam. Thousands attended his funeral, and the execution was taken as a warning by many Copts, a Coptic child was flogged for failing to recite a Koranic verse. In contrast with the extensive media broadcasting of the Muslim Friday prayers, as the civil war raged throughout the 1990s, the government focused its religious fervour on the south. Although experiencing discrimination, the Copts and other long-established Christian groups in the north had fewer restrictions than other types of Christians in the south, today, the Coptic Church in Sudan is officially registered with the government, and is exempt from property tax. Bishop Karas, a Coptic Orthodox bishop born in Sudan, raouf Musad, a playwright, journalist and novelist born in Sudan. Coptic diaspora Christianity in Sudan Copts in Egypt Copts in Libya
40.
Wayback Machine
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The Internet Archive launched the Wayback Machine in October 2001. It was set up by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, and is maintained with content from Alexa Internet, the service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the archive calls a three dimensional index. Since 1996, the Wayback Machine has been archiving cached pages of websites onto its large cluster of Linux nodes and it revisits sites every few weeks or months and archives a new version. Sites can also be captured on the fly by visitors who enter the sites URL into a search box, the intent is to capture and archive content that otherwise would be lost whenever a site is changed or closed down. The overall vision of the machines creators is to archive the entire Internet, the name Wayback Machine was chosen as a reference to the WABAC machine, a time-traveling device used by the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, an animated cartoon. These crawlers also respect the robots exclusion standard for websites whose owners opt for them not to appear in search results or be cached, to overcome inconsistencies in partially cached websites, Archive-It. Information had been kept on digital tape for five years, with Kahle occasionally allowing researchers, when the archive reached its fifth anniversary, it was unveiled and opened to the public in a ceremony at the University of California, Berkeley. Snapshots usually become more than six months after they are archived or, in some cases, even later. The frequency of snapshots is variable, so not all tracked website updates are recorded, Sometimes there are intervals of several weeks or years between snapshots. After August 2008 sites had to be listed on the Open Directory in order to be included. As of 2009, the Wayback Machine contained approximately three petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of 100 terabytes each month, the growth rate reported in 2003 was 12 terabytes/month, the data is stored on PetaBox rack systems manufactured by Capricorn Technologies. In 2009, the Internet Archive migrated its customized storage architecture to Sun Open Storage, in 2011 a new, improved version of the Wayback Machine, with an updated interface and fresher index of archived content, was made available for public testing. The index driving the classic Wayback Machine only has a bit of material past 2008. In January 2013, the company announced a ground-breaking milestone of 240 billion URLs, in October 2013, the company announced the Save a Page feature which allows any Internet user to archive the contents of a URL. This became a threat of abuse by the service for hosting malicious binaries, as of December 2014, the Wayback Machine contained almost nine petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of about 20 terabytes each week. Between October 2013 and March 2015 the websites global Alexa rank changed from 162 to 208, in a 2009 case, Netbula, LLC v. Chordiant Software Inc. defendant Chordiant filed a motion to compel Netbula to disable the robots. Netbula objected to the motion on the ground that defendants were asking to alter Netbulas website, in an October 2004 case, Telewizja Polska USA, Inc. v. Echostar Satellite, No.02 C3293,65 Fed. 673, a litigant attempted to use the Wayback Machine archives as a source of admissible evidence, Telewizja Polska is the provider of TVP Polonia and EchoStar operates the Dish Network
41.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
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Christian denomination
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A Christian denomination is a distinct religious body within Christianity, identified by traits such as a name, organisation, leadership and doctrine. Individual bodies, however, may use alternative terms to describe themselves, groups of denominations—often sharing broadly similar beliefs, practices, and historical ties—are sometimes known as branches of Christianity or denominational families. Individual Christian groups vary widely in the degree to which they recognize one another, several groups claim to be the direct and sole authentic successor of the church founded by Jesus Christ in the 1st century AD. Others, however, believe in denominationalism, where some or all Christian groups are legitimate churches of the same regardless of their distinguishing labels, beliefs. Because of this concept, some Christian bodies reject the term denomination to describe themselves, however, the Catholic Church does not view itself as a denomination, but as the original pre-denominational church. This view is rejected by other Christian denominations, Protestant denominations account for approximately 37 percent of Christians worldwide. Together, Catholicism and Protestantism comprise Western Christianity, Western Christian denominations prevail in Western, Northern, Central and Southern Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas and Oceania. The Eastern Orthodox Church, with an estimated 225–300 million adherents, is the second-largest Christian organization in the world, unlike the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church is itself a communion of fully independent autocephalous churches that mutually recognize each other to the exclusion of others. The Eastern Orthodox Church, together with Oriental Orthodoxy and the Assyrian Church of the East, Eastern Christian denominations are represented mostly in Eastern Europe, North Asia, the Middle East and Northeast Africa. Christians have various doctrines about the Church and about how the church corresponds to Christian denominations. Both Catholics and Eastern Orthodox hold that their own organizations faithfully represent the One Holy catholic and Apostolic Church to the exclusion of the other, sixteenth-century Protestants separated from the Catholic Church because of theologies and practices that they considered to be in violation of their own interpretation. But some non-denominational Christians do not follow any particular branch, though regarded as Protestants. Each group uses different terminology to discuss their beliefs and this section will discuss the definitions of several terms used throughout the article, before discussing the beliefs themselves in detail in following sections. A denomination within Christianity can be defined as an autonomous branch of the Christian Church, major synonyms include religious group, sect, Church. Some traditional and evangelical Protestants draw a distinction between membership in the church and fellowship within the local church. Becoming a believer in Christ makes one a member of the universal church, a related concept is denominationalism, the belief that some or all Christian groups are legitimate churches of the same religion regardless of their distinguishing labels, beliefs, and practices. Protestant leaders differ greatly from the views of the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, each church makes mutually exclusive claims for itself to be the direct continuation of the Church founded by Jesus Christ, from whom other denominations later broke away. These churches, and a few others, reject denominationalism, Christianity can be taxonomically divided into five main groups, the Church of the East, Oriental Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, and Protestantism
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Oriental Orthodoxy
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Oriental Orthodoxy has approximately 84 million adherents worldwide. Oriental Orthodox Churches uphold their own ancient ecclesiastic traditions of apostolic succession and these Churches rejected the definition of the two natures of Christ, known as the Chalcedonian Definition, which was issued by the Council of Chalcedon in 451. The Eastern Orthodox maintain numerous theological and ecclesiological similarities with the Oriental Orthodox, the Oriental Orthodox Churches are in full communion with each other, but not with the Eastern Orthodox Church, despite the similar name. The schism between Oriental Orthodoxy and the Great Church was based on differences in Christology, the First Council of Nicaea, in 325, declared that Jesus Christ is God, that is to say, consubstantial with the Father. Later, the ecumenical council, the Council of Ephesus, declared that Jesus Christ, though divine as well as human, is only one being. Thus, the Council of Ephesus explicitly rejected Nestorianism, the Christological doctrine that Christ was two distinct beings, one divine and one human, who happened to inhabit the same body. The Churches that later became Oriental Orthodoxy were firmly anti-Nestorian, and those who opposed Chalcedon saw this as a concession to Nestorianism, or even as a conspiracy to convert the Church to Nestorianism by stealth. As a result, over the decades, they gradually separated from communion with the Great Church. Monophysitism was condemned as heretical alongside Nestorianism, and to accuse a church of being Monophysite is to accuse it of falling into the opposite extreme from Nestorianism, however, the Oriental Orthodox themselves reject this description as inaccurate, having officially condemned the teachings of both Nestorius and Eutyches. They define themselves as Miaphysite instead, holding that Christ has one nature, the schism between the Oriental Orthodox and the rest of Christendom occurred in the 5th century. They would accept only of or from two natures but not in two natures and it is not entirely clear that Nestorius himself was a Nestorian. The Oriental Orthodox churches were often called Monophysite, although they reject this label, as it is associated with Eutychian Monophysitism. It was not until 518 that the new Byzantine Emperor, Justin I, Justin ordered the replacement of all non-Chalcedonian bishops, including the patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria. The extent of the influence of the Bishop of Rome in this demand has been a matter of debate, Justinian I also attempted to bring those monks who still rejected the decision of the Council of Chalcedon into communion with the greater church. The exact time of event is unknown, but it is believed to have been between 535 and 548. St Abraham of Farshut was summoned to Constantinople and he chose to bring with him four monks, upon arrival, Justinian summoned them and informed them that they would either accept the decision of the Council or lose their positions. Abraham refused to entertain the idea, theodora tried to persuade Justinian to change his mind, seemingly to no avail. Abraham himself stated in a letter to his monks that he preferred to remain in exile rather than subscribe to a faith which he believed to be contrary to that of Athanasius of Alexandria
