Some 70.000 people gathered last night at the huge rock-hewn church and auditorium at St Samaan (St Simeon) Monastery at Muqqattam Hill, east of Cairo, for a night of prayer for Egypt.
WATANI International
12 November 2011
Some 70.000 people gathered last night at the huge rock-hewn church and auditorium at St Samaan (St Simeon) Monastery at Muqqattam Hill, east of Cairo, for a night of prayer for Egypt.
As part of International Prayer Day, the event began at 6:00 pm and went on through the night till the dawn hours of the following day. It included hymns and praises, as well as sermons and Midnight Prayer; and wrapping with Holy Mass that ended at 6:00am.
The various Christian sects in Egypt were all represented, as well as some Muslims who came to join in prayer for Egypt. Many participants waved the Egyptian flag.
The Monastery of St Simeon the Tanner is not strictly a monastery, but rather a conglomerate of churches hewn into the limestone rocks of the Muqqattam Hill. In an idyllic setting of cream-coloured rocky paths interspersed with green bushes, the main church and an auditorium together accommodate some 30,000, to say nothing of the extensive grounds. The monastery was built during the 1980s by the community of Cairo garbage collectors, most of whom had come from Upper Egypt in search for a living, and who lived at the foot of the hill. The story of how this downtrodden community that knew almost nothing about Christ apart from the fact that they had been born into Christianity came to regain their faith at the hands of Father Samaan even before he was ordained a priest, and how they bonded to build a church and the monastery, makes an epic of legendary proportions. Today, the monastery stands to testify to their staunch faith, as they continue their livelihood of garbage collecting and recycling on an almost unheard-of scale.
Muqqattam Hill itself was the scene of a miracle which, according to tradition, occurred in the 10th century. Back then, as tradition has it, the Fatimid Caliph al-Muizz Li-Din Allah challenged the Pope of the Coptic Church Avraam bin-Zaraa to fulfill the Bible verse in Matthew 17: 20 “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove: and nothing shall be impossible unto you.” The Pope declared a three-day prayer and fast period which, as it came to an end, he saw a vision of the Holy Virgin informing him of an obscure tanner, Simeon, who would move the mountain
On the assigned time the Pope, the clerics, the tanner, and a huge Coptic congregation gathered before the Caliph and his men. To fervent chants of Kyrie Eleison (Lord have mercy), a huge quake occurred and the mountain rose and was displaced.