Religious, Spiritual sights in Cairo
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A
Monastery & Church of St George
St George (Mar Girgis) is one of the region's most popular Christian saints. A Palestinian conscript in the Roman army, he was executed in AD 303 for resisting Emperor Diocletian's decree forbidding the practice of Christianity. There has been a church dedicated to him in Coptic Cairo since the 10th century; this Greek Orthodox one dates from 1909. The interior has been gutted by fires, but the stained glass windows and blue-green tile ceiling remain bright and colourful.
The neighbouring monastery is closed to visitors. The Coptic moulid (religious festival) of Mar Girgis is held here on 23 April.
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B
Convent of St George
The Convent of St George is closed to visitors, but you can step down into the main hall and the chapel. Inside the latter is a beautiful wooden door, almost 8m high, behind which a small room is still occasionally used for the chain-wrapping ritual that symbolises the persecution of St George during the Roman occupation. Occasionally, visitors wishing to be blessed are wrapped in chains by the resident nuns, who intone the requisite prayers.
Usually, though, the nuns will merely offer to show you a chain that they claim was used to bind early martyrs.
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C
Church of St Simeon the Tanner
The Church of St Simeon the Tanner, on a ridge above ‘Garbage City’, is just a part of a whole complex carved into the cliffs. It seats 5000 (that the buses carrying worshippers fit through the lanes below is a miracle in itself) and is ringed with biblical scenes carved into the rock. Look over the ridge and you can see the whole sprawling city; look down, and you see real, live pigs rooting around the zabbaleen backyards, recycling the edible trash.
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D
Shar Hashamaim Synagogue
Shar Hashamaim Synagogue is one of the few remaining testaments to Cairo's once-thriving Jewish community. Resembling a set from Tomb Raider, its ornate Babylonian exterior was being restored at the time of research; when it's done, the place may once again be open on Saturdays, the Jewish holy day.
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E
Church of St Barbara
St Barbara was beaten to death by her father for trying to convert him to Christianity. Her relics supposedly rest in a small chapel left of the nave.
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F
Mosque of Amir Qurqumas
The 1507 Mosque of Amir Qurqumas is beautiful, thanks to restoration work, but not always open.
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G
Omar Makram Mosque
Omar Makram Mosque is the place where anybody who's anybody has a funeral.
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