(CE:1415a)
KHIRBITAH, town located on the western edge of the Egyptian Delta about 3 miles (5 km) southwest of Kom Hamadah in the Beheirah Province. In Greek the town was known as Andropolis.
Coptic sources from the pre-Arabic period do not mention Christians or churches in Khirbitah, but the fact that the town was a bishopric within a few decades of the ARAB CONQUEST OF EGYPT suggests that it had been an important center of Christianity even earlier. Records indicate that Bishop Jacob from Khirbitah was one of those present when Patriarch JOHN III died in 686.
Khirbitah was still a bishopric in the eleventh century as evidenced by the attendance of Bishop Theodorus from Khirbitah at the election of Patriarch CYRIL II in 1078 and at a synod in Cairo in 1086 (Munier, 1943, pp. 26, 28).
RANDALL STEWART
