The increased presence of Catholic missionaries in Egypt during the eighteenth century and their modest but noticeable success in winning converts prompted high-ranking Coptic clergymen to assert themselves as true communal leaders. In countering missionary sermons which censured Copts for their “deviant” practices, Coptic religious leaders similarly preached against spiritual and moral degeneration among coreligionists. Their homilies suggest that they were frustrated with their declining position in relation to Coptic lay notables (archons) and with the erosion of a Coptic identity, a concept referenced more overtly here than in other Coptic writings of the early modern period. These discourses are most apparent in the sermons of Coptic Patriarch Yu’annis XIII (r. 1769-1796) and Yusab (r. 1791-1826), Bishop of Akhmim and Jirja. Using research primarily drawn from Coptic archives, this paper focuses on the portrayal of women in Coptic sermons and on their perceived role in preserving communal boundaries. When preaching to Copts in Ottoman Egypt, missionaries recurrently targeted “inappropriate” practices such as underage marriage, polygamy and concubinage. As they formulated their counter-sermons, Yu’annis and Yusab emphasized the church’s vision of normative marital relations and stressed women’s duties towards their husbands. Through a close textual analysis, this paper will show how Coptic clergymen used these sermons to speak directly to women, whom they viewed as vital in maintaining the loyalties of male members. In lamenting the vices of intermarriage with Catholics, which included the spiritual and physical corruption of the community, Coptic clergymen distinguished between good, “believing” Coptic women and sinful, “non-believing” Frankish women, the latter blamed for the demise of the Coptic man and the former capable of saving him. Ultimately, Yu'annis and Yusab's homilies reveal the Coptic Church’s underlying concerns that the Catholic mission, its foreign teachings, mores, and conceptions of gender relations diluted the Coptic identity and, in the end, threatened the clergymen’s authority as spiritual leaders.