Today, Egypt marks the third anniversary of the Maspero victims, the more than 20 Copts who lost their lives on 9 October 2011, run down by military tanks in Maspero, Cairo, as they protested peacefully against the injustices inflicted upon the Copts..
Victor Fakhoury’s modern-day icon The Martyrs of Maspero commemorates the painful event.
The artist has the martyrs “robed in white” (Rev 7: 9) with red-blood crosses across their chests. They are in a ship sailing home—to Heaven. The ship is carried by the everlasting hands of the Almighty. The entire formation is based on the cup of the blood of Jesus.
The icon abounds with Egyptian symbols: the lotus, the pyramidical forms, and the winged sun also the Christian “Sun of righteousness with healing in its wings” (Mal 4: 2).
Above is the church, a symbol of truimph which, according to the Lord Himself, “the gates of Hades will not overcome” (Matt 16: 18).
Watani Ineternational
9 October 2014