Coptic Cairo

We felt a need to do something cultural yesterday so Nancy, Laura, Gavin, and I paid a visit to Coptic Cairo which is only about 15 minutes from our flat by taksi? This is a place we’ve been meaning to get to for some time now but just haven’t….until now. Some of you are saying to yourselves right now, “what is Coptic Cairo?” ok so maybe none of you are but I’m going to tell you anyway so if you were a picture book reader when you were younger just skip ahead…

If not, you may be interested to know that Coptic Cairo is located in Old Cairo so called because its OLD and by OLD I mean older than the rest of Cairo, or possibly old as in people lived here as far back as the 6th century BC. You may recognize the name given to it by the Romans who built a fortress around 98 AD here which they called Babylon. Some of the Roman walls still exist here today.

Egyptian Orthodox Christians are referred to as Copts which is a Greek corruption of an ancient Egyptian word. The Romans used this word to describe the natives of Egypt from the Romans and when the Arabs arrived in 642 AD, the population was mostly Christian so the word Copt was used to refer to the Egyptian Orthodox Christians. Today Copts make up about 10% of the population in Eygpt.

We didn’t really have a plan so we just wandered, which is my preferred method of sightseeing and usually when everything interesting happens to us. We visited the Abu Serga (St Sergius) church, there is a is a cave below the church which is believed to be the place where the Holy Family stayed when they arrived in Egypt fleeding King Herod and the slaiughter of the first born sons. June 1st is celebrated each year as day of their arrival. The stairs are through the room on the right that you cannot see.

Next on the walking tour was Saint Barbara's Chapel. She was killed by her father for trying to convert him to Christianity. Guess she did not succeed.

The steps lead to her chapel. You will notice that there aren't any veiled woman here. We saw maybe a handful becasue the Coptics do not cover because they are Christian and the covering is a Muslim tradition.

It was very interesting to watch the local people within the church. They touched or kissed every picture, statue, and relic they passed. The germs being passed must have been scarey!

We also visited the Hanging Church, dedicated to the Virgin Mary and built on the water gate of Roman Babylon. This church was the seat of the Coptic Pope after it was moved from Alexandria in the 10th century AD.

Then there is the Synagogue of Ben Ezra, believed to the oldest synagogue in Egypt and possibly the place where Moses was found as a child, near this spring.

We also discovered why there are no dragons around today. St George and his Nuns seemed to have done them all in, or at least had something against them as these pictures suggest…Not a good place for an ijit dragon but I escaped unscathed, the nuns must have been taking the day off.

Stay tuned for our next adventure.