The glazed floor
A glass panel looking straight down into the Roman gateway beneath the nave.
Berthold Werner — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Holger Uwe Schmitt — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Holger Uwe Schmitt — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Holger Uwe Schmitt — CC BY-SA 4.0
The best known of Egypt's Coptic churches, called hanging because it was built over the gatehouse of the Roman fortress of Babylon — its nave suspended between two towers, its floor some ten metres above the ground. Its oldest layers go back to the third or fourth century, and what stands today is the result of repeated rebuilding across the centuries. A section of the wooden floor is glazed so that you can look straight down into the void of the Roman gate beneath. The interior is almost entirely wood: a roof shaped like an inverted ship's hull, an ebony sanctuary screen inlaid with ivory, and old Coptic icons of which the Virgin is the most famous. The church sits at the heart of the Old Cairo compound, and within a few hundred metres stand the Church of St Sergius, in whose crypt the Holy Family is held to have sheltered, the Ben Ezra Synagogue, and the Mosque of Amr ibn al-As, the first mosque built in Africa. That juxtaposition is the reason to come, more than any single building in it. Entry is free and it is a working church; services are held, and visiting during them is not appropriate.
A glass panel looking straight down into the Roman gateway beneath the nave.
Ebony inlaid with ivory, among the finest surviving Coptic joinery.
Churches, a synagogue and Africa's first mosque within one small circle.
Old Cairo, Fustat, Cairo
The Church of St Sergius, in whose crypt the Holy Family is said to have sheltered; the Ben Ezra Synagogue, one of the oldest surviving anywhere and the source of the famous Geniza documents; the Coptic Museum with its full collection; and the Mosque of Amr ibn al-As, the first mosque on the continent. All adjoin one another.
By metro to Mar Girgis on Line 1, which opens onto the compound entrance. This is one of the few sites in Cairo where the metro beats a car by a wide margin.
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