Our Lady at Zeitoun, Egypt

Our Lady of Zeitoun

https://parishableitems.wordpress.com/2018/04/03/our-lady-of-zeitoun

A Fascinating Marian Apparition from Egypt

On the evening of April 2, 1968, a group of Muslim mechanics & drivers working across the street from Virgin Mary’s Coptic Church in Zeitoun, Egypt, saw a woman atop a dome of the church.
Two other men also noticed the white figure on the top of the church & the matter was reported to the police.

A crowd gathered on the site & interpreted the sighting as an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

After a few minutes, the event ended.
According to tradition, Zeitoun is on the route that the Holy Family took when fleeing King Herod’s efforts to murder the infant Jesus.




One week later, on April 9, 1968, the phenomenon reoccurred, again lasting for only a few minutes.
After that time apparitions became more frequent, sometimes 2 or 3 times a week, for several years, ending in 1971.
The woman spoke no words, but moved about the church’s mysteriously illuminated domes.

She'd also face the people in the streets below & gesture warmly with her head or hands.
Sometimes she was accompanied by luminous, dove-shaped bodies which moved about at high speeds.
Muslims hold Mary in very high regard even though they deem Jesus to be merely a prophet of Islam. She was seen to kneel down before a cross on the church roof; significant, since Muslims deny Jesus’ crucifixion.

Pope (or Patriarch) Kyrillos VI, the head of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, appointed a committee of high-ranking priests & bishops to investigate.
On May 4, 1968, Kyrillos VI issued an official statement confirming & approving the apparition.

These apparitions were witnessed by perhaps a million people, including President Gamal Abdel Nasser, & were documented by newspaper photographers & Egyptian television.
Egyptian government officials concluded in 1968:
“Official investigations have been carried out with the result that it has been considered an undeniable fact that the Blessed Virgin Mary has been appearing on Zeitoun Church in a clear & bright luminous body seen by all present in front of the church, whether Christians or Muslims.”