We have another very early wakeup call, at 2:45am, and we gather in the lobby at 3:15am for some coffee and portable breakfast items. Off to the airport, check in and security, a one-hour flight to Cairo, and we gather luggage and people back onto the same bus we had earlier.
We go to Old Cairo where we will see the St. Sergius church, the Ben Ezra synagogue, the hanging church, and the tomb of Sadat. Old Cairo is less than 2 square miles, with 20 mosques, 10 churches and one synagogue, an was historically a very tolerant area. St. Mark preached in Alexandria, then came to Cairo, he returned to Alexandria where he was tortured and killed. In the early 20th is century, his body was taken from its tomb and then to Italy. The government gave it back recently, and the body of St.. Mark is now back in the church in Cairo. For nearly 300 years, Christians were persecuted by the Romans, and then persecuted again as they had pursued a different style of Christianity from Rome. As we enter Old Cairo, we go by the old cemetery which has tombs of Christians, Jews, and Muslims.
This part of Cairo was the first capital of modern Egypt, originally called Fustat, from the 10th century. We go down some stairs to the level of 17th century Cairo, lower than the street level. It was divided into districts, each one having a gate to shut it off from other parts of Cairo. The districts were mixed in religion and were like one family. The gate was locked at sunset, and no one would be admitted after that without the password that changed daily. This helped to protect religious tolerance, because it was district vs, district, not religion vs, religion. When Napoleon came, people went up into church towers and minarets and saw the French movements, and were able to resist for a very long time. We go down a long alleyway lined with books. Over a large arch, we see a bas relief of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus on the flight to Egypt; they hid here for at least a few months in the crypts of the synagogue, because Egypt was run by the Romans at the time.
We enter St. Sergius Church, even lower at the 6th century AD level. Deep walls were built in this area to drain the water about 20 years ago. Two years ago, the crypt was full of water, but now it is clear and we can walk there. We see a glass covered area lined with mosaics; in the 10th century, the government forbade people from going to the Nile for the critical day of cleansing, so they built this area to create that cleansing water access. The church is built of mud bricks in basilica style, with a wooden ceiling over the nave, and a half-dome behind the altar. There is an elaborately carved wooden rood screen with two entry gates, a gold and velvet hanging in the center and crowned by icons of the 12 apostles with Mary and Jesus in the center. The wooden ceiling symbolizes Noah’s ark covering and saving the people. The walls are lined with paintings of saints which look about 12th century. The elevated pulpit is striped stone on an eight-sided shape, and there are 10 stone columns with Corinthian capitals. The main altar is flanked by two smaller chapels, just like the ancient Egyptian temples. The Coptic church means the Egyptian church. Hu-ka-Ptah is one of the ancient names for Egypt, land of the spirit of Ptah, and eventually this became Copt. When the Muslims conquered Egypt, the word Copt began to stand for all Egyptian Christians. 95% of all Egyptians Christians are Eastern Orthodox, with a small number of Catholics and Protestants. This church was built in the 6th century on the site of where the Holy Family hid. We enter the crypt with a small area of niches, identified as the place where the Holy Family slept. As we depart, the Mass is beginning, each prayer is done first in Coptic (ancient Egyptian) and then again in Arabic. Outside the church is a map showing where the Holy Family came to Egypt, overland on a route now dotted with monasteries, and they returned via the Nile and then crossed at Sinai where Moses parted the Red Sea.
We walk to the Ben Ezra synagogue, also built in the basilica style as it was a church dedicated to Angel Gabriel, then Ben Ezra in the 12th century bought this and made it a synagogue. From the 7th to the 12th century it was a church. Jews built the first synagogue in Egypt in the 3rd century BC, before Alexander, built by Jeremiah. The Romans destroyed it, then after the Romans were gone, both Christians and Jews claimed it, there were more Christians than Jews, so it became a church. In the 12th century, churches were highly taxed, they could not pay the taxes, thus the purchase by Ben Ezra. It was used as a synagogue until 1950s when most Jews left after industries and farmland were nationalized. Nasser nationalized large farms, taking 90% of their farmland and divided the remainder into 20 small farms, which pleased the poor farmers and scared the wealthy, including many Jews and Christians. Most went to Israel and the US. Today there are only 48 Jews here, descendants of the poorer Jews, this one, Ben Ezra is now a museum. There is still one synagogue in use downtown. After peace in 1979, this synagogue Ben Ezra was restored. The inside is beautiful carved and inlaid wood, with the cabinet of the Torah closed. The Ganeza is the place where documents with the name of God were stored, as they could not be destroyed, hundreds of thousands of documents were discovered there by an American Jewish archaeologist, including the oldest Torah on earth, written on leather. This area was holy because it was said that Moses prayed here. Across then river is Giza, which the Jews called Goshen. They believed that the basket with the baby Moses was found near here, because this area was close by the Nile at that time.
Our next stop is the Hanging Church, built on one of the old Roman towers in the 5th century AD with many steps leading up to it. When this was built, the ground level was a few stories lower. The Coptic cross over the entrance has the small Maltese cross in the center and twelve points that represent the apostles. The walls and ceiling are highly carved stone and wood, with Arabic inlays over the archways where one enters the church. Before the split, the title of the Patriarch was called the Pope, who was crowned in Alexandria. The pulpit is built on 15 columns, arranged as one column and 7 pairs, which represent Jesus and the apostles and the evangelists. One of the columns is darker, symbolizing Peter who denied Christ. At one time the government prohibited restoration of old churches or building new ones. The patriarch went to the governor, who said if they had faith and could move a mountain, they could restore the church. After 3 days of fasting and prayer, the governor comes, there was an earthquake and the mountain behind the church shook and the governor fled in fear, and they were able to restore their church. The pulpit has some ancient Egyptian symbols. The cross on the pulpit is resting on a step pyramid, and the other cross is enclosed in something like cartouche for protection. We see a special 18th century icon featuring St. John the Baptist with Mary and baby Jesus (even though Jesus and St, a John were about the same age). The icon is trimmed with gold and silver painted wooden columns intricately carved. Like with many religions, people who were mostly illiterate learned the stories by pictures, not by reading documents. Interestingly, the eyes of Mary and Jesus seem to be looking at you wherever you stand, giving the impression that their heads are moving. As we exit the church, we see the Roman tower from the 2nd century AD, replacing the fortress of Babylon built in 1,300BC it was built by Babylonian captives under a Rameses II; this was the final refuge of the Romans when the Arabs conquered them. It is quite a way below the street, but back then it was ground level and close to the Nile. As we exit, we go by the first Arab capital of Cairo, with the very first mosque in Egypt. The Romans brought the capital to Alexandria (Ptolomy), and the Egyptians were a land-based defense country, riding horses from the desert, not a naval power, so the Arabs we challenged when invaded by naval forces.
Hassan tells us about Anwar Sadat as we approach his tomb. Nasser did not want a powerful general
as his vice president, fearing a coup, so he selected Sadat who was quiet. Sadat came to power in 1971, and the top generals were against him. They planned to arrest Sadat that night, but, but Sadat arrested yhem at noon, thus the revolution of 15 May. The Muslim Brotherhood was started by a teacher in the 1920s, was about Muslims being more pious. In 1930s they became violent with weapons etc., in the 40s they assassinate the Prime minister and a judge, and after that they are banned. In 1954, when Nasser became president, the Brotherhood asked for their share, Nasser denied it, there were numerous attempts to assassinate him. He then arrests the Brotherhood leaders, some were executed, other had long jail terms. Then Sadat becomes president, releases them, turns the page, said they had freedom except for politics. Nasser was loved by Egyptians but disliked by foreigners, Sadat was the opposite. In 1973, Sadat massed his army secretly on the west bank do the Suez Canal, got it reopened in 1975. In 1977 Sadat visits Israel and speaks to the Knesset. Then in 1979, the Camp David peace treaty was signed, and Egyptians and Arab countries turned against him. Some started planning his assassination then. In 1981, he was e while at a big military parade in Cairo, called a tattoo. That event was broadcast on CNN, and certain officers were chosen to participate. One officer, who had been investigated for questionable connections it cleared, told his organization that he would be there. For the event, all military rifles had no firing pins, only guards with firing pins would be presidential security. The night before the show, each of the officers who had 10 men under him, and hat officer replaced him with another fundamentalist former army soldier who was a sniper. The following day, they order sandwiches for breakfast from a restaurant nearby, where they change out the firing pins inside the sandwiches, the get the firing pins and load their rifles. The parade started, airplanes flew over, the replacement soldier was on a Russian truck while Sadat was watching the plane. The soldier told the driver to stop, he refused, the officer pulled the handbrake, and the sniper shot Sadat in the neck. They thought Sadat would be wearing a bulletproof vest but he was not. The two men jumped off the truck, yelled at everyone to clear, Sadat was already down they hit him with 37 more bullets. Sadat said “impossible” three times as he saw them coming. They did not announce his death but that he was injured, later announced his death. His security was usually underneath him for the parade. Sadat wanted the security moved because it was being broadcast. He did not want people to think he is as afraid of his own army. They took he security behind the sitting area and by the time they arrived it was too late. After he shooting the two escaped, no one had reacted. They were arrested later as they had camera footage. They did this because they felt he Sadat was betraying Egypt and his religion. The place where this happened was directly across from the The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, from
1973. Sadat was constructing a mosque for his burial site, but it was not finished, so they buried him under the Unknown Soldier memorial in a fine wooden box. The centotaph calls him the Reis, the Pious, the hero of war and peace, he had dedicated his life for peace and he was martyred for principles (which he had said in advance of his assassination).
We arrive at Khan el-Khalili marketplace, and Hassan lets us loose for an hour. We find a nice blue djellaba for Madeleine, a small owl for Larry (in Egyptian called Boom), a cat for Mary, and a small necklace for Natalie. The 10th century Cairo main street was called Al Mays, with a few side streets.. Today it is a narrow lane lined with shops and layers of goods for sale hanging over the street. We go by another ginormous shopping street (Mosqii) which is covered with umbrellas and by afternoon will be thronged with shoppers. We head back to the hotel now to rest.
This afternoon we meet up with Ahmed Emam, Nashwa’s father, a native of Egyot who lives here 4 months of the year. He drives us through the hardware and building materials district of Cairo which was fascinating and frighteningly crowded. We drive out to see the New Capital, and then back to the home he is building in New Cairo, which is quite beautiful and filled with murals of Egypt and the Bay Area. We enjoy an Egyptian dinner with him and his sister and nephew and then back to the hotel to prepare/for our last day in Egypt.
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