In Turkey the Armenian Church is largely under the control of the government. For, as far back as 1461, the Sultan Mohammed II, in order to have the Primate of this Church under his direction, raised the bishop of Constantinople to the dignity of Patriarch. As a result of this arbitrary action of the Sultan the Patriarch of Constantinople and not the Katholikos of Etchimiadzin has ever since been the real primate of all the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. In addition to the two Patriarchs just named, the Armenian Church counts two others. For some centuries ago, as the result of schism and usurpation, it was forced to recognize the self-styled Patriarchs of Jerusalem, and Sis in Cilicia. But, although the schism has been healed, the Patriarchs are still tolerated. They are, however, only titular and have no jurisdiction as such. Monophysitism was embraced not only by the Jacobites and Armenians but also by a large part of the people of Egypt. It was these Egyptian Monophysites who constituted what has since been known as the Coptic Church. Like the Jacobites and Armenians, the Copts,[326] since their schism has been out of communion with the rest of Christendom, have suffered all the persecutions and been involved in all the internal dissensions that have been the lot of the other schismatics of the East. The Copts of Egypt now number about half a million souls. Their chief ecclesiastical ruler, who usually resides in Cairo, is the Patriarch of Alexandria. He pretends to be the direct successor of the Evangelist St. Mark, the first bishop of Alexandria, and claims jurisdiction not only over Egypt but over Abyssinia as well. Like the other Eastern Churches, that of the Copts has its own peculiar rites and customs. She uses old Coptic in her liturgy although it has for centuries been a dead language and is no longer understood by any of her priests. As is the case with most of the Nestorians and Jacobites, the language of the Copts is Arabic. And like the sparsely scattered schismatics of Syria and Mesopotamia, the great majority of the Copts and Abyssinians live in a state of extreme poverty and ignorance, although their more fortunate countrymen and coreligionists are now making efforts to elevate them in the social scale and give them some of the benefits of an elementary education.