Coptic Cairo

The other weekend I went to Coptic Cairo with a few friends. I was feeling under the weather and so did not have a good a time as maybe I should have, but it was still a nice trip. Lucky for me I will probably go again in a week and then I know that I will go again in a week after that. For those of you who don’t know what Coptic is I will give you a vague definition. The Copts are the native Christian religion here in Egypt. The country is mainly Muslim, about ninety percent I would guess. The other ten percent is mainly Coptic Christians with a few other little groups thrown in to round out the whole bit. The Copts are most like what we may think of as an orthodox Christian religion. For those of you who don’t know what the difference is the Orthodox Church is the result of a schism in the Christian church around the time of Constantine and the council at Nicomedia somewhere in the fifth century AD. For those of you who don’t know what a schism is, look it up.

Anyway, the Copts have been worshipping in Egypt for a long time. Some of the churches we went into had signs saying stuff like, “This is the catacomb in which the holy family (Mary, Joseph, and Jesus) stayed for a short time.” Kind of cool, I’m skeptical, but still kind of cool. We also went to a number of really really old churches. The one in the pictures with the two steeples is called the hanging church. It is called this because it literally has nothing underneath. It is built on stilts above water level and so is “hanging” in the air. In the church floor are little slots where you can look below and see water below. Makes sense considering how close to the Nile the church is. Some other highlights were going into one of the only synagogues in Cairo (Egyptians hate Israel for obvious reasons) and see and old Roman wall, which unfortunately I did not get a picture of. Maybe I will get the picture next time.

It was nice to be in a Christian area, but also a little unnerving. To be in a place that is more densely foreigners than other places was strange. I really don’t like being around others like me, it is strange and doesn’t feel right. It is sort of like, “One of these things is not like the others.”