Harare, Zimbabwe (News of the South)-More than 70 000 Christians are gathering every week in an enormous and beautiful cave church at the foot of the Mokattam hills in Egypts’s Cairo in a show of religious devotion and courage that has daunted many.
The Cave Church is one of the largest in Egypt and surrounded by a predominantly Islamic culture it has withstood ostracisation and abuse to remain alive.
Historically marginalized and evicted from Giza in 1970, the community of Coptic Christians took up residence at the foot of the Mokattam hills in south east Cairo where they have built a total of 7 cave churches.
The largest of these is a 1,000 square foot cave church was carved at the foot of Mokattam Mountain and is the largest in the Middle East with an ampitheater that boasts a seating capacity of 20,000 devotees.
According to congregants there, being in the Arabic world, surrounded by all Islam dominated countries, it is very hard to maintain the custom and continue of their Coptic culture.
Various videos being aired on the internet have revealed a fervent congregation that is very much intent to stay true to its beliefs whilst worshiping Jesus in a geographical and cultural span straddled in a fundamentalist grip of Islam.
Due to the destabilizations through which Egypt has gone many churches in the country have been losing their members as they have suffered from the ongoing political turmoil, a slumped economy and the increasing militant insurgency.
“Mostly they’re travelling to US to find better opportunities because of uncertainties in Egypt.”
“It’s not easy to be a Coptic Christian in the Middle East these days considering the militant insurgency in Egypt”, said Rev. Markos Ayoub, who heads St Mark in English.
This has also increased fears for the future of Christianity in the Middle East as if the trend continues it may result in the complete disappearance of such minority religions as Christianity.
However the history of the Cave Christians reveals a stoic group that has withstood plenty of adversities to remain alive and worshipping in the Middle East hub of Islam.
According to a Slate publication the Zabaleen, as the Cave Christians are known, which means garbage people, came to this part of Egypt as a result of a Cairo governor’s orders that all garbage collectors be removed to one area.
“In 1975 the first Christian church was built in the village, but after a large fire broke out nearby, work began on a monastery that was built right into the Cliffside.”
“Using a pre-existing cave and the slope that led into it, the current monastery seats 20,000 people around a central pulpit. Other nearby caves have also been built into separate church spaces, and all of them have been linked to create a massive Christian complex in the heart of garbage city”, it says.
At a time Egypt is undergoing much political upheavals the Cave Christians provide a respite of hope that it shall be well as its turning out for the ‘garbage people’.
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