In our second edition of Scoop’s Catholic Corner, I wanted to share with you something that I’ve recently learned regarding the Blessed Virgin Mary.
In the last 1960s, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared in a suburb of Cairo, Egypt called Zeitoun. She appeared over St. Mary’s Coptic Church in early April and didn’t just appear once, but many times over the next two years or so.
Here’s an actual photo:
Keep in mind this is well before Photoshop was born. Heck this was before I was born.
Here’s a brief video detailing what happened, narrated by Ricardo Montalbán, with photos of the apparition:
I find this incredibly interesting. This isn’t just something that a few people witnessed. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions saw the Blessed Virgin Mary atop the church, whether it be Christian, Muslims, or secularist. It was even witnessed by the President of Egypt, President Gamal Abdel Nasser. And there were miracles reported too!
Here’s another video that explains in more detail what happened:
According to Wikipedia, the Egyptian government could find no explanation for the Marian apparition and concluded that it was legitimate:
The first apparition at Zeitoun was recorded on the evening of April 2, 1968, when a Muslim bus mechanic named Farouk Mohammed Atwa, who worked across the street from St. Mary’s Coptic Church in Zeitoun, supposedly thought he saw a woman attempting suicide by jumping from the structure. Two other men also noticed a white figure on the top of the church[1] and the sighting was reported to the police.[2] A crowd gathered on the site and the police attempted to disperse it. According to the police, the sighting was just a reflection of the light from the street lamps.[2] However, the crowds reportedly viewed the sighting as a clear apparition of the Virgin Mary, and so, the attempts by the police to disperse the crowd were unsuccessful.[2] The event itself ended after a few minutes.
One week later on April 9 the phenomenon reoccurred, again lasting for only a few minutes. After that time apparitions became more frequent, sometimes two-three times a week, for several years, ending in 1971.[2] According to Coptic tradition, the site is one of the locations where the Holy family stayed during their flight into Egypt.
The head of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, Pope of Alexandria, Kyrillos VI appointed a committee of high-ranking priests and bishops to investigate the matter, headed by Bishop Gregorios, bishop of postgraduate studies, Coptic culture and scientific research.[3] On May 4 Kyrillos VI issued an official statement confirming the apparitions.[4]
Nuns of the Society of the Sacred Heart also witnessed the apparitions and sent a detailed report to the Vatican, resulting in the arrival of an envoy on April 28 who also saw the apparitions and sent a report to Pope Paul VI[citation needed]. As the apparition appeared over a Coptic church, the Vatican left the investigation to the Coptic authorities. On May 5, 1968, Coptic Orthodox Pope Kyrillos VI approved the apparition.
The apparitions were also witnessed by President Gamal Abdel Nasser,[5] and captured by newspaper photographers and Egyptian television. Investigations performed by the police could find no explanation for the phenomenon. No device was found within a radius of fifteen miles capable of projecting the image, while the sheer number of photographs from independent sources suggests that no photographic manipulation was involved. Having been unable to produce an alternative explanation for the luminous sightings, the Egyptian government accepted the apparitions as true.[6]
While I certainly wasn’t there, this seems hard to deny with all of the evidence. I do wonder, however, for those of you who were old enough to watch the news back in the late 60s, if you remember seeing this reported back then? I can’t imagine this didn’t get any news coverage, especially given that it happened weekly for two to three years.
Now I’m sure that some of you will have your doubts and I can understand skepticism. I only ask that you be respectful in conversations below. I will be watching…