The date 9 March marks the day in 1971 when the then patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church, Pope Kyrillos VI, passed away. Pope Kyrillos VI was the 116th Pope of Alexandria and successor of Saint Mark the Evangelist. He sat on the seat of Saint Mark for twelve years (1959-1971) during which—and even much earlier—he earned the reputation of being a ‘man of prayer’. The name has come to define who Pope Kyrillos VI was. Today, even though he has not been canonised since the Church canonises no-one before fifty years of his or her death, he is seen by the Coptic congregation as a true saint to whose name and through whose intercession so many miracles are attributed.
Life of solitude
Pope Kyrillos VI was born in 1902, Azer Youssef Atta, in the western Delta town of Damanhour. He resigned a distinguished civil service position to become a monk in July 1927. He passed his probationary period and, in February 1928, took his monastic vows at the Baramos Monastery in Wadi Natrun in the Western Desert and assumed the name of Father Mina el-Baramosi.
Father Mina’s love for God was so great that he desired a life of solitude where he could live exclusively with God. Only thirty years old at the time, the assembly of monks of Baramos Monastery tried to dissuade him. “You are only 30, and you have only been a monk for five years. Do you want to pursue the life of solitude in the desert while many others before you have struggled for the same goal for thirty or forty years and failed?” they said. Yet Fr Mina stuck to his decision.
He lived in a cave near the monastery and pursued a life of solitude. One day in 1933, Fr Mina heard a knock at his door. It was Hassan Fouad, head of the House of Arab Antiquities, accompanied with Head of the Theological College in New York and who asked him for information about Orthodox monasticism. Dr Fouad was impressed with Fr Mina’s rich knowledge and spirituality and, as he left, asked him to contact him if he ever needed anything. As improbable as this seemed at the time, it was to materialise only three years later.
Hill of the mills
In 1936 Fr Mina had to move to Cairo on account of his volunteering to care for seven elderly monks who had been temporarily dismissed from Baramos. When their problem was resolved and they later returned to the monastery, Fr Mina decided to stay on and resume his solitary life in an old windmill on a desolate part of Muqattam Hill. This was one of some 50 mills which were built there during Napoleon’s military campaign against Egypt in1798-1801, and Fr Mina needed official permission to lodge there. He remembered Dr Fouad’s offer three years earlier and headed to his office asking to rent the windmill. Dr Fouad agreed to give him a lease contract and insisted upon paying the rent on his behalf for a long time. He even gave orders to his guards to see if Fr Mina needed anything.
The windmill is six metres high and three metres in diameter, built of limestone, and stands upon a part of Muqattam hill that has been known as the Hill of the Mills. When Fr Mina took his residence there it was totally abandoned save for the outlaws who roamed the area and sometimes took shelter there. Scorpions and poisonous snakes infested the place.
Good bye to the mill
Fr Mina was happy in his new place. He stayed there for days with no cover, furniture, a roof or door. Every Sunday morning, he would go to the nearest church, that of Archangel Michael to attend the raising of incense and the Divine Liturgy. He used to leave right away after the service without talking to anybody. His behaviour intrigued the church’s priest Fr Dawoud and another well-known parishioner, so they followed him one day and found out about the mill with no roof or door.
They sat with him on the floor for some time and returned filled with love and pity for this poor monk who chose such a difficult way to live. The following day, they sent some men to make a roof and a door for the windmill and to change it into two floors. The first floor would be for Fr Mina to live in; the second was to be an altar. Time passed, the windmill became a well-organised place, and Fr Mina became famous. People from all over Egypt came to see him. They saw that God accepted his prayer and that miracles did occur. Fr Mina had to set a time for opening his cell; outside of these hours, he did not see anybody. When the numbers increased, he had to arrange for daily Mass, so more people could receive blessings.
In 1941, at the height of World War II, the Allies took the eastern part of the al-Muqattam as a defence field, and when the air raids were at their peak, the commander asked Fr Mina to leave the mill. He moved for a while among the churches in Old Cairo then settled in a cell at the church in Zahraa’. He built St Mina’s church in Old Cairo in 1947 and took it as an abode till his ordination as a Pope in May 1959.
Source of blessings
In 1986, several mills were destroyed but it was Providence that saved Pope Kyrillos’ mill. Cairo’s notorious overpopulation turned the district into a residential area and, during the 1990s, the mill itself became the centre of a large place of worship. A wall was built around the mill area, and the place now houses several churches consecrated to St Mary, St Mina, St Simon, and one built right opposite the door of the mill and consecrated in the name of St Apiskhairoun, above which a church of the Archangel Michael stands. Outside the wall, a six-storey guesthouse was built for spiritual retreats. A home was built for the elderly who are unable to pay the expenses and, two years ago, a hospital was established to meet the needs of the Christian and Muslim residents in the area.
Those who remember the mill as the solitary place of worship that it was may sorely miss it and lament the over development of the place but, be that as it may, the mill continues to serve as an invaluable source of blessing to all who seek it.