St George

We visited a beautiful circular church at the Monastery of St. George, an Orthodox monastery in the heart of Coptic Cairo. It was lovely watching religious pilgrims touch the altars and kiss their fingers, leaving prayers scribbled on notes for their favorite saints. The church itself felt so ancient, very dark and tall inside with domes reaching far above and tiny hints of light peeking through stained glass. Most Egyptians (something like 95%) are Muslim, but the remaining 5% are almost entirely Coptic, an ancient sect of Christianity with its own Pope and distinct saints. Having developed as an island in a sea of Islam for centuries, Coptic Christianity has a slightly different doctrine from Catholicism or Protestantism, and my first impression of it was that it was like Christianity in a parallel universe, which in a way it sort of is. The Coptic Bible is different from the Latin, and its services are conducted in Arabic and an old Coptic language that is derived from the ancient Egyptian. The Copts are considered to be purer descendants of the ancient Egyptians than their Muslim Arab counterparts, but there have been infusions of Nubian, Greek, and Jewish blood over the years as well. As the minority in Egypt, the Copts have been at a disadvantage, and some of the most impoverished areas I have visited were the Christian neighborhoods.