The Catholic Church in Africa is part of the worldwide Catholic Church in full communion with the Holy See in Rome. Christian activity in Africa began in the 1st century when the Patriarchate of Alexandria in Egypt was formed as one of the four original Patriarchs of the East (the others being Constantinople, Antioch, and Jerusalem). However, the Islamic conquest in the 7th century resulted in a harsh decline for Christianity in northern Africa. Yet, at least outside the Islamic majority parts of northern Africa, the presence of the Catholic Church has grown in the modern era, in Africa as a whole, one of the reasons being the French colonization of several countries in Africa. Catholic Church membership rose from 2 million in 1900 to 140 million in 2000. In 2005, the Catholic Church in Africa, including Eastern Catholic Churches, embraced approximately 135 million of the 809 million people in Africa. In 2009, when Pope Benedict XVI visited Africa, it was estimated at 158 million. Most belong to the Latin Church, but there are also millions of members of the Eastern Catholic Churches. By 2025, one-sixth (230 million) of the world's Catholics are expected to be Africans. The world's largest seminary is in Nigeria, which borders on Cameroon in western Africa, and Africa produces a large percentage of the world's priests. As of 26 June 2020, there are also 29 Cardinals from Africa, out of 222, and 400,000 catechists. Cardinal Peter Turkson, formerly Archbishop of Cape Coast, Ghana, is Africa's youngest Cardinal at 64 years old, and was also one of several prelates from Africa estimated as papabile for the Papacy in the last papal conclave of 2013. History Ancient era Many important members of the early Church were from Africa, including Mark the Evangelist, Origen, Tertullian, Saint Augustine of Hippo (from Hippo Regius in what is now Annaba, Algeria) and Clement of Alexandria. Churches in eastern North Africa, such as those in Egypt and Ethiopia, tended to align with the practice of Eastern Christianity, but those to the West (the area now known as the Maghreb) generally were more Western in practice. Three early popes were from the Roman Africa Province. These were Pope Victor I (reigned c . 189 to 199), Pope Miltiades (reigned 311 to 314) and Pope Gelasius I (492 to 496); all three were North African men. Under Islamic conquests and rule Archaeological and scholarly