The Church of the Holy Virgin at Haret Zuweila in Gamaliya, Cairo, serves one of the two oldest Coptic residential areas in Fatimid Cairo, the other being Haret al-Rum. The great significance of this church lies in its being one of the places the Holy Family stayed in while in Egypt.
It is documented by the Arab historian al-Maqrizi that the church was built almost 270 years before the Arab invasion of Egypt. The area is named after the Zuweila clan that lived in that area but originally came from Morocco at the time of the Fatimids.
Magnificently beautiful
The Coptic historian Abul-Makarem (1117-1204) describes the church when first built as “magnificently beautiful”, especially during the great Coptic celebrations of Palm Sunday and the Holy Cross.
In 1303 the church became the papal headquarters, with Pope John VIII being the first pope to establish the papal seat there. The church continued to be the papal headquarters until the papacy of Pope Meta’os IV (1660 -1675).
Unfortunately the church suffered severely from attacks of fanatics; in 1321 it was partially destroyed but was reconstructed. In 1559 the church was ordered closed by the Ottoman Sultan, but later renovated and reopened.
The church, near Port Said Street, lies almost 14 feet below street level and suffers from high groundwater levels. It contains many historically priceless icons. Several icons have been catalogued and restored, some as part of a project funded by the American Research Centre in Egypt between 1999 and 2003.
Major work has been carried out by an American-Egyptian project under the direction of Shawqi Nakhla. This is concerned with the restoration of the main sanctuary of the church, and has received special attention from the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) which has erected a special unit to help in the restoration and maintenance of the icons. The dome and walls have also been restored. As a result of the renovations, attention was focused on the church as a tourist attraction and it was placed on the ‘open museum’ map. In another attempt to increase awareness of the church’s importance the renovations unit has installed descriptive cards on all the icons to give essential information in both Arabic and English.
Discoveries
During the renovation process a very important discovery was made in that the wood used to build the dome was actually recycled wood, probably used in the construction of the two previous domes. The wood had sections of designs and traces of colours used before. This discovery led to the renovation of the dome of the left sanctuary, which in turn led to the collection and reassembly of all the timber.
Another significant discovery was that the artist who created the dome—most likely a 16th century Coptic artist—used the titles and names of Jesus all around the interior of the dome with plants and geometrical designs for decoration rather than the usual picture of Jesus known as the Pantocrator, found in all churches from the 18th century onwards. The designs used show the Coptic influence along with the Islamic designs rather than the Ottomon effect, which makes this dome in particular and the whole church in general a remarkably important historical and artistic monument.
The team responsible for the renovations sent by the SCA was led by Sami Girgis Assad, who was in charge of the renovations of the icons in the Zuwila area, and Mervat Rizq, the general supervisor of the group.
