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His Holiness in Black
Part 4 of five articles
The Nile was floating lazy below the garden of the Swedish Embassy.
Marriott's elegant and luxury dinner cruise ship between us and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs skyscraper on the other Nile bank.
"International" was a keyword at the garden party, and I had just talked to someone of the American University who hoped to travel into the desert when a man in long black dress and black beard suddenly came over.
He did not only have a prestigious black beard, a long dress down to his black shoes - on top of his head was a black cap.
It was more persons dressed like this in Egypt, and I still remember one time one of my guests saw a black dressed person as this and asked: "Oh, is that one of the fundamentalists?" Had to answer that I did not know about the fundamentalist part, but knew for sure he was a Christian monk...
The man in black on a Swedish lawn by the Nile was not just any monk - he was Bishop Thomas.
More exactly; Bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Bishopric El Quossia & Mair in Assiut.
Thinking about it, if the Holy family had not followed the tour suggestion from the Winged Travel Consultant mentioned in the first article - I would most likely not have met the Holiness in Black in the Swedish garden by the Nile.
It's many holy men in black in Egypt, a country where St. Mark the Evangelist came in 50 or 60 A.D. and established the Egyptian (Coptic) Church. It's known that Patriarch Demetrius (188-230) appointed several Bishops during his time, so already then the Christian Church began to spread from Alexandria and inwards the country.
In year 201 - under Emperor Septimius Severus - the first persecution of Christians happened in Egypt. The strongest persecution happened during the time of Diocletian (284-305) - but it lasted on and off all the way up to the Muslim conquest over the East Roman Empire in Egypt (640 A.D.). It's said that hundred of thousands of Egyptian Christian martyrs where killed during the persecutions.
Egypt became one of the most important places in Christianity, and great scolars as Clement and Origen led the Alexandrian Catechetical scool - one of the most important theological schools during the second and third centuries.
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Map showing the road through Sinai, the Nile delta and to Babylon (Cairo).
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The reason behind all of this was still sitting on the lap of Virgin Mary who was riding the small donkey through Egypt. When we left them in the last article they where passing the pyramids and the Sphinx and came to what thousand years later should be named the "Victorious City", El Qahira. Many legends tells about events of the Child Jesus during his time in Cairo.
For pilgrims travelling to the Holy Lands during the medieval times, a sycamore tree where the holy family rested under was the most visited place (still standing in al-Matariya district of Cairo, and said to be the same tree). Today known as the Tree of the Holy Virgin Mary.
From the tree of the Holy Virgin Mary we move on to the famous church of the Holy Virgin in Maadi (south in today's Cairo). We will follow the stairway leading from the yard, down to the Nile and into the next article - in search of among other the reason why Bishop Thomas from Assiut district came to the Swedish Embassy 2000 years later.
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Text & photo, Arnvid Aakre
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First Published December 2000
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