The largest ever statue in Egypt of the Holy Virgin has been installed in Assiut, some 350km south of Cairo.
The bronze statue was made by sculptor Girgis al-Gawli. It weighs around 10 tons, stands 9 metres tall and has been placed on a 15-metre-high pedestal base.
In a word he gave at Assiut’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral of Archangel Mikhail, Assiut Bishop Anba Yu’annis said: “Congratulations to all of us. I am so happy today as the statue of “The Queen” Virgin Mary has been installed on its base a few days before the Holy Virgin’s Fast starts on 7 August.
“I remember visiting Lebanon some 16 or 17 times,” Anba Yu’annis said. “Every time I went there, I was keen to visit the statue of Our Lady of Lebanon, which the Lebanese call “Harissa” after the name of the village where it is located. I always left feeling I had been so richly blessed.”
Anba Yu’annis explained that it was that experience that made him ardently wish to have a similar statue in Egypt. He said that Egyptian sculptor Girgis al-Gawli sculpted the statue in foam, taking five months to do it. “We then went to a Cairo foundry owned by the Iraqi Annas al-Alussy, for the bronze statue to be moulded.”
In order to move the statue from Cairo to Assiut it was cut into more than 20 parts. The parts were each mounted on special vehicles that safely took them to the convent of the Holy Virgin on Assiut’s Western Mountain where a special site had been prepared to host it.
Anba Yu’annis concluded his word with the Bible verse: “Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labour in vain,” (Psalm 127).
“This statue will be a blessing for many—myself included,” he said.
The statue is right on time to welcome the multitude of pilgrims who flock to the convent to celebrate the 15-day Fast of the Holy Virgin which concludes with the Feast of her Assumption on 22 August. Both the fast and feast are festive occasions for Copts who spend them in daily spiritual programmes of morning Masses, and evening prayer meetings and hymns; in addition to fair-like festivities in which everyone engages. Especially popular are festivals held in churches that stand on spots traversed by the Holy Family on its flight into Egypt.
By far, however, the most famous celebration of the Holy Virgin is the one held at the convent on Assiut’s Western Mountain, also known as Dronka Mountain. The mountainside is home to a cave which is believed to have hosted the Holy Family. More than 1.5 million pilgrims head to Assiut during the Holy Virgin’s Fast to worship, celebrate, seek blessings and possibly miracles, and baptise their children. Assiut’s late Metropolitan Anba Mikhail who was seated in 1946 and passed away in 2014, and is seen by Copts as a modern-day saint, built large guesthouses and churches to accommodate the growing number of visitors, and presided over the spiritual activities of the Holy Virgin’s Fast. The current Bishop of Assiut, Anba Yu’annis, followed in the Metropolitan’s footsteps and has kept the thriving tradition alive.
The Holy Virgin’s procession at Assiut Mountain is an unequalled one-of-a-kind event. Scores of deacons in white robes and red sashes line up in a wide double row carrying crosses and chanting to cymbals and triangles in a procession leading the icon of the Holy Virgin, with Anb Yu’annis offering incense before the icon. The procession starts inside the cave that hosted the Holy Family, and marches along a path down the mountainside and up again. Pilgrims line that path waiting for the icon to pass by, and erupt in joyful ululations and cheers once it does. No one that ever witnessed it but that determines to be back again.
Watani International
6 August 2023