Christianity arrived to Africa in the 1st century AD; as of 2024, it is the largest religion on the continent. Several North African Christians influenced the early development of Christianity and shaped its doctrines, including Tertullian, Perpetua, Felicity, Clement of Alexandria, Origen of Alexandria, Cyprian, Athanasius, and Augustine of Hippo. In the 4th century, the Aksumite empire in modern-day Ethiopia and Eritrea became one of the first regions in the world to adopt Christianity as its official religion, followed by the Nubian kingdoms of Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia and several of the Maghreb's Christian Berber kingdoms.
The Islamic conquests into North Africa brought pressure on Christians to convert to Islam due to special taxation imposed on non-Muslims, the threat of enslavement and other socioeconomic pressures under Islamic rule, although Christians were widely allowed to continue practicing their religion. The Eastern Orthodox Church of Alexandria and Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria (which separated from each other during the Chalcedonian Schism) in Egypt and the Orthodox Tewahedo Church survived Muslim invasion. Islamization of Muslim-ruled territory occurred progressively over the next few centuries, though this process is not fully understood by historians. Restrictions on church building and demolition of churches in Egypt, along with occasional persecutions such as during the reign of al-Hakim (996–1021), put additional pressure on Copts in Egypt. In the Middle Ages, the Ethiopian Empire was the only region to survive as a Christian state following the expansion of Islam. The Ethiopian church held its own distinct religious customs and a unique canon of the Bible. Therefore, the Ethiopian church community is globally unique in that it wasn't Christianised through European missionaries, but was highly independent and itself spread missionaries throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa prior to the contact of European Christians.
In the late 15th century, Portuguese traders and missionaries began arriving in West Africa, first in Guinea, Mauritania, the Gambia, Ghana, and Sierra Leone, then Nigeria and later in the Kingdom of Kongo, where they would find success in converting prominent local leaders to Catholicism. During and after the Scramble for Africa in the late 19th century, these Christian communities and others began to flourish up and down the coasts, as well as in Central and Southern Africa as new European missionary activities began. The support of the welfare of peoples by Christian missionaries, who saw all people as descended from Adam and Eve, was instrumental in the conversion of large parts of sub-Saharan Africa to Christianity. In the 21st century, they constitute the bulk of the growing Christian community on the continent.
As of 2024, there are an estimated 734 million Christians from all denominations in Africa, up from about 10 million in 1900.https://academic.oup.com/book/32113/chapter-abstract/268045986?redirectedFrom=fulltext "In 1900, Christians in Africa represented 2 percent (or 10 million people) of all Christians in the world and about 9 percent of the population of Africa." In a relatively short time, Africa has gone from having a majority of followers of indigenous, traditional religions, to being predominantly a continent of Christians and Muslims, even though there is a significant and sustained syncretism with traditional beliefs and practices.Rosalind Shaw, Charles Stewart, Syncretism/Anti-Syncretism: The Politics of Religious Synthesis (1994) Christianity is embraced by the majority of the population in most Southern African, Southeast African, and Central African states, as well as in large regions of the Horn of Africa and West Africa, while Coptic Christians make up a significant minority in Egypt. According to a 2018 study by the Gordon–Conwell Theological Seminary, more Christians live in Africa than in Latin America or Europe.
History
Antiquity: Early Church
Christianity reached continental Africa first in Egypt around the year 50 AD. Mark the Evangelist became the first bishop of the Alexandrian Patriarchate in about the year 43.Eusebius of Caesarea, the author of Ecclesiastical History in the 4th century, states that St. Mark came to Egypt in the first or third year of the reign of Emperor Claudius, i.e. 41 or 43 A.D. "Two Thousand years of Coptic Christianity", Otto F.A. Meinardus, p.28. At first the church in Alexandria was mainly Greek-speaking. By the end of the 2nd century the scriptures and liturgy had been translated into three local languages. Christianity in Sudan also spread in the early 1st century, and the Nubian churches, which were established in the sixth century within the kingdoms of Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia were linked to those of Egypt.Jakobielski, S. Christian Nubia at the Height of its Civilization (Chapter 8). UNESCO. University of California Press. San Francisco, 1992.
Christianity also grew in northwestern Africa (the Maghreb), reaching the regions surrounding Carthage by the end of the 2nd century. The churches there were linked to the Church of Rome and provided Pope Gelasius I, Pope Miltiades and Pope Victor I, all of them Christian Berbers like Saint Augustine and his mother Saint Monica.
At the beginning of the 3rd century the church in Alexandria expanded rapidly, with five new suffragan bishoprics. At this time, the Bishop of Alexandria began to be called Pope, as the senior bishop in Egypt. In the middle of the 3rd century the church in Egypt suffered severely in the persecution under the Emperor Decius. Many Christians fled from the towns into the desert. When the persecution died down, however, some remained in the desert as hermits to pray. This was the beginning of Christian monasticism, which over the following years spread from Africa to other parts of the Gohar, and Europe through France and Ireland.
The early 4th century in Egypt began with renewed persecution under the Emperor Diocletian. In the Ethiopian/Eritrean Kingdom of Aksum, King Ezana declared Christianity the official religion after having been converted by Frumentius, resulting in the promotion of Christianity in Ethiopia (eventually leading to the foundation of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church). At the beginning of the fifth century, no other region of the Roman Empire had as many bishoprics as Northern Africa; when the Vandal king summoned a synod in Carthage, 460 Catholic bishops attended.
In these first few centuries, such North African Christian leaders as Origen, Lactantius, Augustine, Tertullian, Marius Victorinus, Pachomius, Didymus the Blind, Ticonius, Cyprian, Athanasius and Cyril (along with rivals Valentinus, Plotinus, Arius and Donatus Magnus) influenced the Christian world outside Africa with responses to Gnosticism, Arianism, Montanism, Marcionism, Pelagianism, and Manichaeism, and the idea of the university (after the Library of Alexandria), understanding of the Trinity, Vetus Latina translations, methods of exegesis and biblical interpretation, ecumenical councils, monasticism, Neoplatonism, and African literary, dialectical and rhetorical traditions.Oden, Thomas C. How Africa shaped the Christian Mind, IVP 2007.
Early Middle Ages: After the Islamic conquest of North Africa
Following the Muslim conquests, most of the early Muslim caliphs showed little interest in converting the local peoples to Islam. Christianity continued to exist after the Muslim conquests. Initially, Muslims remained a ruling minority within the conquered territories in West Asia and North Africa. Non-Muslim populations became minorities in these regions by the 8th century. The factors and processes that led to the Islamization of these regions, as well as the speed at which conversions happened, are complex subjects. Among other rules, the Muslim rulers imposed a special poll tax, the jizya, on non-Muslims, which acted as an economic pressure to convert alongside other social advantages converts could gain in Muslim society. In the northwestern Maghreb (along the Mediterranean coast of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya), the Catholic Church gradually declined along with local Latin dialects.Der Nahe und Mittlere Osten By Heinz Halm, page 99Ancient African Christianity: An Introduction to a Unique Context and Tradition By David E. Wilhite, page 332-334
Historians have considered many theories to explain the decline of Christianity in North Africa, proposing diverse factors such as the recurring internal wars and external invasions in the region during late antiquity, Christian fears of persecution by outsiders, schisms and a lack of sustained leadership within the Christian church in North Africa, political pragmatism among the inhabitants under the new regimes, and a possible lack of differentiation between early Islamic and local Christian theologies that may have made it easier to accept the new religion. Some Christians, especially those with financial means, also left for Europe. In the northern Maghreb, the Church during Early Christianity lacked the backbone of a monastic tradition and was still suffering from the aftermath of heresies including the so-called Donatist heresy; one theory proposes this as a factor that contributed to the early decline of the Church in the northern Maghreb. Proponents of this theory compare this situation with the strong monastic tradition in Egypt and Syria, where Christianity remained more vigorous. In addition, the Romans and the Byzantines were unable to completely assimilate the indigenous peoples of the Maghreb.
Some historians remark that the Umayyad Caliphate persecuted many Berber Christians in the 7th and 8th centuries CE, who slowly converted to Islam.The Disappearance of Christianity from North Africa in the Wake of the Rise of Islam C. J. Speel, II Church History, Vol. 29, No. 4 (Dec. 1960), pp. 379–397 Other modern historians further recognize that the Christian populations living in the lands conquered by Arab Muslims between the 7th and 10th centuries CE suffered religious persecution, religious violence, and martyrdom at the hands of Arab Muslim officials and rulers. Many were executed under the Islamic death penalty for defending their Christian faith through acts of resistance such as refusing to convert to Islam, repudiation of Islam, and subsequent reconversion to Christianity, and blasphemy towards Muslim beliefs.
From the Muslim conquest of Egypt onwards, the Coptic Christians were persecuted by different Muslim regimes. Islamization was likely slower in Egypt than in other Muslim-controlled regions. Up until the Fatimid period (10th to 12th centuries), Christians likely still constituted a majority of the population, although scholarly estimates on this issue are tentative and vary between authors. Under the reign of the Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim (r. 96–1021), an exceptional persecution of Christians occurred, This included closing and demolishing churches and forced conversion to Islam, which brought about a wave of conversions.ha-Mizraḥit ha-Yiśreʼelit, Ḥevrah (1988). Asian and African Studies, Volume 22. Jerusalem Academic Press. Muslim historians note the destruction of dozens of churches and the forced conversion of dozens of people to Islam under al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah in Egypt ...These events also reflect the Muslim attitude toward forced conversion and toward converts.