Shortly after Jesus’ birth, the Holy Family was forced to flee as King Herod began slaughtering all the boys born recently in the Bethlehem area. They traveled to Egypt, stopping at many points along the Nile before it was safe for them to return home.
Almost 2000 years later, in a town along their journey called Zeitoun, a Coptic Christian man named Tawfik Khalil Abraham had plans to build a hotel. However, Mary appeared to him in a dream and asked him to build a church instead. In return, she promised a future miracle. He obeyed and built her St. Mary’s Coptic Church.
Zeitoun was religiously diverse, with Muslims, Catholics, Coptic and Protestant Christians, Jews, and atheists all populating the area. 50 years after St. Mary’s was built, that religious diversity was growing in tension. Muslim extremism was on the rise. They had even marked all Christian houses with a threatening red cross on their doors.
In April of 1968, two Muslim men who were working across the street from St. Mary’s saw a woman standing on the roof of the church. Thinking she was about to take her life, they shouted at her not to jump and attracted a crowd. It didn’t take long before the crowd realized who she was.
Clothed in glowing white and blue robes and surrounded by flashing lights, Mary seemed to gaze and smile at each witness personally. Muslims, Jews, Christians, and atheists all saw her repeatedly – multiple times a week for 3 years. She never spoke a word, but sometimes appeared with St. Joseph, the infant Jesus, or with the older child Jesus. Often, she held either a cross or an olive branch, but she always appeared with a gaze of immense love.
At one point, officials wanted to test if this was a simple projection. They examined a 15-mile radius for electronic devices and even caused a blackout in the area, only for the visions to continue without fail.
And since this apparition was so recent, there are so many still alive today who witnessed the apparition personally. And many pictures and even videos were captured of the apparitions.
Her garments flowed in the breeze, and some reported seeing the whites of her teeth when she smiled at them. Countless onlookers reported miraculous healings from blindness, paralysis, even polio, cancer, and other terminal illnesses. And, of course, many converted to Christianity.
Without a spoken message, we are left to speculate about the purpose behind this apparition. However, when we consider that similar apparitions occurred in Assiut in 2006, and Warraq in 2009, we can see a connection. Both apparitions were very similar to the one in Zeitoun, and both towns were also along the route that the Holy Family took on their flight through Egypt, escaping the slaughter of the innocents.
Perhaps these apparitions were meant to bless Egypt with peace, fostering a sense
of community and harmony among the many religions, in return for sheltering the Holy Family from harm centuries prior. Or perhaps there were other factors in the world that inspired the appearances.
In the same month of the apparition in Zeitoun, April of 1968, the United Kingdom legalized abortion. Similar laws spread to many other countries, including our own. Perhaps Mary’s presence –along the route of her escape from a mass killing of children– was a call for the world to pray for an end to abortion.
