Anba Antonius church wall paintings refurbished

After three years of dedicated repair work on the 13th Century wall painting of the Red Sea Anba Antonius Church, the project will be inaugurated on Thursday.

Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni has delegated Gaballah Ali Gaballab, Secretary General of the Supreme Antiquities Council, to unveil the resurrected paintings.

The inauguration ceremony will be attended by Minister of the Environment Nadia Makram Ebeid, the Red Sea governor, US Ambassador to Egypt Deniel Kurtzer.

Abbot Anba Boutros and Willard Pearson, director of the US Gaballah, the repairs of the paintings were undertaken by an Italian -team under the supervision of the council and the US Research Center in Cairo.

The paintings are the work of Coptic artists between the early and late 13th Century. Thick layers of dust have accumulated over the ages, almost totally obliterating the original colors of the wall paintings as a result of using the church as a refuge for Copts fleeing Roman persecution.