Virgin Mary Church in Maadi overlooking River Nile
Egypt, History, 5/31/2000

Celebrating the advent of the Holy Family to Egypt, an audio-visual artistic show would be staged on the banks of the River Nile before the Virgin Mary Church in Maadi.

"Tourism Ministry has made all arrangements necessary to stage an Egyptian-World Festival on the occasion of celebrating the anniversary of the advent of the Holy Family to Egypt," said Minister of Tourism Dr. Mamdouh Al-Beltagui.

He underscored the importance of this great event at both national and international levels. The advent of the Holy Family to Egypt, seeking refuge, is an event of the utmost significance in our dear country's long, long history. The path of the Holy Family across Egypt is a unique religious destination exclusive to Egypt.

Celebration of Holy Family to Egypt.

On July 5, 1997, Tourism Ministry submitted to the Cabinet a working paper underlining the significance of Egypt's participation in the great festival of the advent of the third millennium, proposing the Pyramids plateau in Giza to be the site hosting the event. However, celebrating the anniversary of the advent of the Holy Family to Egypt ranked second in the Ministry's list of celebrating great events.

In this context, the Ministry of Tourism, in cooperation with Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria, prepared a historically scrutinized written document to be the core of the book that was issued in this respect in eight languages. The book, entitled 'The Holy Family in Egypt', was issued in English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Greek, Japanese and originally in Arabic.

One of the sites visited by Holy Family in Sharqia

The festival is entitled 'Blessed is Egypt, My People', the prophetic utterance of Isaiah, (Isaiah 1 9: 25). The authority of the Old Testament prophecy, which portended the crumbling of idols wherever Jesus went, further foreshadowed the singular blessing to be bestowed upon Egypt, for having been chosen as the Holy Family's haven, and upon its people for having been the first to experience Christ's miraculous influence.

God's message, also delivered through the prophetic utterance of Isaiah, "Blessed is Egypt, My People",' (Isaiah 1 9: 25), was an anticipation of the coming of St. Mark to our country, where the Gospel he preached took firm root in the first decades of Christianity. For Isaiah goes on to prophecy: "in that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt; and a pillar to the Lord, at its border. And it will be for a sign and for a witness to the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt". (Isaiah 19: 19 & 20).

Model of Virgin Mary Tree

Virgin Mary Church in Maadi was selected to be the site of the festival, as it is one of the most significant legs where the Holy Family had a rest in Cairo. It was also the starting point from where the Holy Family headed to Upper Egypt.

After their short, but all-too-felt, stay in Old Cairo, the Holy Family moved in a southerly direction, reaching the modern Cairo suburb of Maadi which, in earliest Pharaonic times was an outlying district of Memphis, then capital of Egypt; and, at Maadi, they boarded a sailing-boat which carried them up the Nile towards southern Egypt.

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