Their numbers are heavily disputed but are estimated to compromise roughly 10% of the Egyptian population. They are mainly followers of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, there are however a minority among them who are members of the Coptic Catholic Church, and an even smaller group who belong to the Coptic Evangelical Church. The Coptic language, which directly descends from the Egyptian spoken in ancient Egypt, continues to be used as the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria.