UOC delegation visits sites of Holy Family in Egypt

On March 28-29, a delegation of abbots and representatives of monasteries of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church visited Egyptian cities that have places and artefacts related to the stay of Christ, the Mother of God and Joseph the Betrothed in Egypt, reports the website of the Department for External Church Relations (DECR) of the UOC.

Ukrainian monks also got acquainted with Christian temples and monasteries in Cairo.

The first place associated with the flight of the Holy Family to Egypt for the delegation was the city of Sakha. There is a stone with the imprint of the foot of the Infant Christ. The Ukrainians handed over to the local church a copy of the foot of the Mother of God, which was revealed on the Pochaev Hill and a book about the Pochaev Lavra, where a similar miracle took place.

Representatives of the UOC were received in the city of Giza, through which the Holy Family also passed. The Ukrainians were greeted with special solemnity: scouts, singing a musical composition with drums, lined up near the cathedral and then the delegation entered the temple accompanied by a choir singing and playing cymbals.

The Bishop of Central Giza Theodosius warmly received the Ukrainian monks and spoke about the peculiarities of the communal life of the Coptic Church. The guests were shown a film about the journey of the Holy Family in Egypt.

In Cairo, the delegation visited the grotto where Christ lived with the Mother and Joseph and the temple of the Martyrs Sergius and Bacchus built over it. The pilgrims visited the temple of the Virgin in Maad, according to legend, erected on the site where the Holy Family crossed the Nile.

On the same day, the delegation of the UOC visited the church of the Holy Great Martyr Barbara in Cairo and the convent of the Great Martyr George, the churches of the Great Martyrs Barbara, Juliana, Damiana and the Martyr Philomena of Rome, the convent of the Martyr Mercury.

At the monastery of the Great Martyr Theodore Stratilates, the delegation was hospitably received by the abbess and sisters of the monastery, who presented His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry with an icon of St. Onuphrius the Great made by nuns, especially revered in the monastery. During a meeting in the main church of the monastery, Metropolitan Arseny of Svyatogorsk addressed the nuns with a profound speech about the meaning of monastic life and ways to overcome the temptations that arise along the way.

The Ukrainians also visited the Convent of the Martyr Damiana and exchanged their experience of monastic life with the inhabitants of the Monastery of the Martyr Mina in the Marriott Desert near Alexandria.

As reported, on March 26-27, the UOC delegation visited the monasteries of the Nitrian Desert in Egypt.