THE ORDER OF SAINT MARK OF ALEXANDRIA

BY: RONALD E, PROSSER The Patriarchate of Alexandria, one of the five great Patri-

archates of the early Church, was, according to ancient tradition, founded by the Apostle Saint Hark. The present Patriarch, His Bea- titude Nicholas VI, reigns in succession to his predecessor Anni- anus, ordained by Saint Mark in 45 A.D., and in succession to the blessed Apostle himself.

The early Church in Alexandria was possessed of great spiritual and intellectual vigor, growing as it did in one of the principal centers of learning of the ancient world. However, ~n the mid-sev- enth century Egypt and all of north Africa fell to the Arabs, and contact between the Christians of Egypt and the rest of the body of the Church was all but severed. During the succeeding centuries

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Alexandria declined in importance as silt clogged the sea passage to the Nile and as the Arab rulers of Egypt preferred to make the newly founded city of Cairo their capital.

In 828 the relics of Saint Mark were stolen from Alexandria by Venetian traders and transported to Venice. There a basilica was built to house the relics, and thereafter Saint Mark was looked upon as the patron of that city in preference to its former pro- tector, Saint Theodore, while, of course, continuing to be revered as the patron of the Patriarchate of Alexandria.

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By the time of the crusades Alexandria was the most isolated of the Orthodox Patriarchates. Contact was, none the less, continu- ally maintained with Constantinople, and in 1215 a delegate Was sent to the Lateran Council in Rome. However, by 1310 the schism with Rome was complete and marked by the nomination of a rival Latin Patriarch.

The decline of Alexandria almost ended in its total ruin under the Turks, who conquered Egypt in 1517, but the reconstruction of the city began in the first half of the nineteenth century concur-

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