The passing of Coptic Patriarch Shenouda III in 2012 has prompted observers and scholars of Egypt's Coptic Christian community to appraise his enormous contribution to the institutional development of the Coptic Orthodox Church. There are few who would challenge the notion that Shenouda has had far and away the greatest impact upon the institution of the Church since at least the mid-nineteenth century. Nonetheless, this paper urges a reappraisal of the institutional impact of Shenouda's predecessor, Kirollos VI. Among observers and scholars of modern Coptic history, the impact of Kirollos on the temporal affairs of the church is often neglected in favor of an exclusive focus of his spiritual influence, and in that connection, the abundant miracles he is said to have performed. Drawing upon a wide range of primary sources, recently made available to scholars through the digitization efforts of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, this paper establishes that most of the initiatives that led to the vast expansion of Church activity under Shenouda were, in fact, inaugurated by Pope Kirollos VI. Further, a thorough understanding of the contemporary 'renaissance' of the Church, often credited to Shenouda, requires an exploration of Church and community dynamics since Kirollos's rise to the Patriarchal seat in 1959. Indeed, I will argue, perhaps counterintuitively, that the circumstances of Nasser's 'secular' rule laid the groundwork for a reorientation and distinct reassertion of Coptic communal identity.