The monastery of the Virgin Mary in Assiut, in southern Egypt, has a special meaning. It is considered the last stop of the Holy Family trip in Egypt and includes an old cave where it is believed that Jesus, Mary and Joseph lived before starting their return to the Holy Land.
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In Alto Egypt, monastic life has thrown out since the fourth century under San Juan de Egypt – also known as Juan de Assiut in the Middle East and North Africa. The monastery continues its mission today, with daily masses, baptisms and visits of pilgrims.
This well -known religious site also houses one of the largest annual religious celebrations in Egypt. Every year, from August 7 to 22, during the feast of the Virgin Mary, the visit of the Sagrada Familia is celebrated to Assiut.
The celebrations attract huge crowds of pilgrims, especially on the day of the feast of the Virgin, with an assistance that exceeds 750,000 people, according to ACI Mena, an Arab agency of EWTN News.
The monastery complex includes several churches, but the historic Cave Church is surrounded by special reverence.
The oral tradition tells that José, the patriarch, used the cave to store grain and that the sacred family lived there later. In later centuries, the cave served as a refuge for the Christians of Egypt who fled from the persecution, many of whom turned these shelters into churches.
It is unusual to find statues of Christ, the Virgin or the saints in the Orthodox copas churches, which traditionally venerate them through icons. However, in 2023the Assiut monastery saw the installation of the largest statue of Mary in Egypt, cast in bronze and modeled according to the famous statue of Our Lady of Lebanon, to coincide with the celebration of her birthday.
The House of La Moneda de Egypt too He issued A commemorative series of 12 coins that represent the main sites along the journey of the Sagrada Familia in Egypt, including the Assiut site, known as Durunka.
Translated and adapted by the ACI Press team. Originally published in Aci mena.
Georgena Habbaba
Georgena Habbaba is an Iraqi journalist and editor of ACI Mena, as well as a former Arab language supervisor at the San Pedro Seminar of the Balloon Patriarchy in Erbil, Iraq.