This dissertation examines the social and political values that informed how Egypt’s Orthodox Copts understood, engaged with, and contested their institutions of communal governance from 1927 to 1961. These institutions, including the papacy, the Holy Synod, and the Communal Council underwent profound changes as part of Egypt’s “liberal era” from 1923-1952, a period defined by parliamentary and constitutional politics. I argue that the liberalism of this era, understood here as a set of practices and ideals aimed at liberating a community politically by forging a relationship between individuals and their governing institutions based on representation and choice, extended beyond the national level and shaped the character of Coptic institutions on a communal level. “Communal liberalism,” I contend, became the key force by which Copts defined their institutions during this period.My inquiry into these institutions focuses on a distinct period of the Coptic Communal Council, an initially elected body of laymen first established in 1874 with a mandate of administering designated communal affairs. While the character of the Council’s membership shifted during the first fifty years of its existence, at times incorporating clergy and appointed members, in 1927 it was reestablished as a body of fully elected lay elites, a character that it largely retained until 1961. While the Council neither initiated nor fully encompassed the breadth of communal liberalism, I argue that it served as an important symbol for Coptic political ideals and as a conduit for their pursuit. The presence of such an institution set the tone for debates on the nature of Coptic institutions during this period, as Copts challenged, defined, and reimagined their communal bodies and struggled over their domination by elites, both lay and clerical. As the presence of Copts in Egyptian government positions declined in the 1940s, debates over representation grew in intensity, attracting the attention of the Egyptian state and setting the stage for the consolidation of authority in the hands of ecclesiastical bodies in the 1960s.