(Cairo) While all in America were watching the Chicago riots
at the Democratic Convention, or viewing live war zone
broadcasts from Vietnam or were being mesmerized by the
Watergate hearings on television, the Mother of Jesus was
appearing for tens of thousands to see in the land of the
pyramids at a Coptic church constructed to commemorate the
area in Egypt where she had come with Joseph and Jesus when
they all fled from Herod. Starting in April, 1968, her
apparitions of light changed the lives of thousands. Her
appearances at Zeitun were astounding. She was seen by more
than a million people. The apparitions were broadcast by
Egyptian TV, photographed by hundreds of professional
photographers and personally witnessed by Egyptian President
Abdul Nasser. The apparitions lasted for three years with
numerous unaccountable healings recorded by various medical
professionals. The local police, who initially thought the
apparitions were an elaborate hoax, searched a 15-mile radius
surrounding the site to uncover any type of device that could
be used to project such images. They were completely
unsuccessful.
Today the cathedral of Zeitoun, a massive concrete
bunker-like basilica, overflows with the faithful. Inside,
priests in dark robes and boys in white gowns and scarlet
sashes walk towards the hazy golden altar, bearing billowing
incense and chanting the Coptic liturgy. The whole massive
edifice was built to commemorate the fact that 25 years ago,
the Holy Mother herself honored this spot with her presence.
To some it was a blinding light, unlike anything on earth. To
others she was unmistakable, the Virgin Mary, walking as if in
the flesh, on the roof of the small chapel across from where
the basilica now stands, looking like the paintings and icons
they revered.
Her first visit was on the night of April 2, 1968. Two
Muslim watchmen at a garage saw a woman walking the roof of
the church across the street. Afraid she was going to jump,
they ran out shouting at her not to take her life, summoning a
crowd below. The priest of the chapel was the first to believe
it was an apparition. The longest single appearance was on
April 30, 1968, when the vision remained from 2:45 a.m. until
5 a.m. The nightly apparition attracted vast crowds of both
Copts and Muslims, and was declared a genuine miracle by the
Coptic Church.
During the year when apparitions visited the small church
on Tamambay Street in Zeitoun, thousands came, saw and
believed, from the humble to the highest bishops of the Coptic
church. They describe in detail what they saw 25 years ago.
Father Butros Cayid, brother of Pope Shenouda, presides
over the cathedral of Zeitoun. "I saw her with my own
eyes. The apparition appeared four hours continually, and all
the people were shouting, 'San Maria, San Maria! Our Holy
Mother, our Holy Mother!'. Father Butros has described her
many times, to the believers and the curious. "In a blue
dress, glittering," 
adds Hermina Amin, deacon of the
church. "Sometimes you could see every part of the body.
Sometimes she appeared at the window, sometimes the whole
figure." Others remember her as a light. "She came
only at night," said La'ami Tawfia, volunteer director of
church projects. "I saw her once. A light, that was weak.
After a while, it grew brighter. She was completely white, her
face, her robes, everything"
Saraim Wasily was one of the thousands of people who came
during the year that the Virgin appeared. Unlike most, who
were kept away from the site by police, he was able to watch
from his brother's apartment a few dozen meters from the
church. "I saw her twice. She was 
very tall, and she did
not stand on the ground. I watched her for more than two
hours. She shone more than the moon, all completely white,
sometimes with her arms together and sometimes with her arms
outstretched. Every night there were doves, and doves, you
know, do not fly at night."
Despite the police, the street was packed with the faithful
and curiosity seekers. "If you wanted to go from this
house to the church [across the street], you would take 20
minutes ... There were Muslims and Christians, and everyone
was as one, one religion together." His wife interjects
with a chuckle, "He was so scared, his hair stood on
end." "Not from fear," Wasily responds, finger
upraised, "from piety!" Word spread and the faithful
came. Foreign visitors and high church officials visited the
site and left believing they had seen the Virgin Mary.
For a year, the apparition appeared sporadically, never at
the same time, accompanied by lights, doves, and stars.
Miracles were reported. The Coptic Pope sent an official
delegation of bishops to observe the appearances.
After seeing the vision walk the rooftops, they solemnly
certified that the apparition was genuine. But after two years
the visits became almost routine. Distinguished visitors could
apply for permission with the patriarch to
"Virgin-watch". As winter came, the crowds dwindled,
the police re-opened the street, the appearances decreased to
an odd star or pigeon, and soon they stopped completely.
"She came to remind us that God is with us forever,"
said Father Butros, "and as a sign of peace, because she
was bearing an olive branch. She told us that all the
Egyptians will be safe and blessed forever."
Others have put the Virgin in her context. She came at a
period of crisis in Egyptian history, the 1967 war having
vitiated Nasser's pan- Arab appeal. Mary's coming coincided
with the 
return of veiling, the sprouting of beards, and the
other signs of the Islamist renaissance. She helped to cement
the advent of spiritual over secularist politics.
Some anthropologists suggest that Mary's popularity in
Egypt is a vestige of the Isis cult, itself an incarnation of
primeval mother - goddess worship. Virgin sightings may be
among paganism's contributions to monotheistic mysticism. But
to Father Butros and his flock, the appearance of the Mother
of Jesus in their humble church in Zeitoun, dressed like an
icon so that there would be no mistake as to her identity, was
heaven's endorsement of
all they believed.
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