Here too the Arab conquest (641) put an end to the oppression of the native Christians by the Greek minority; but this did not afford the Coptic church any possibility of vigorous development.
At the time of the conquest of the country by the Turks (1517) the Coptic church seems already to have fallen to the low condition in which the 19th century found it.
Only in Abyssinia the daughter church of the Coptic church succeeded in keeping the whole people in the Christian faith.
Union with the Coptic Church continued after the Arab conquest in Egypt.
The oldest Coptic church in Cairo is, probably, the Keniset-el-Adra, or Church of the Virgin, which is stated to preserve the original type of Coptic basilica.
