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By Emma Donnelly

In 1920, an Egyptian Coptic Christian by the name of Tawfik Khalil Abraham made plans to build a hotel on a plot of land he owned in the town of Zeitoun. According to Coptic tradition, Zeitoun hosted the Holy Family during their flight to Egypt. However, just before Abraham could begin the construction of his hotel, the Virgin Mary appeared to him in a dream and requested that he build a Coptic church on that spot instead. In return, she promised to perform a miracle there.

Abraham halted plans for the hotel and informed his workers that they would be building a church.  Five years later, the Coptic Orthodox Church of St. Mary was completed — but no miracle yet.

In 1922, Egypt gained independence from Great Britain, and for the next 30 years, Coptics began to see progress in terms of treatment from the Egyptian government — but still no miracle.

In the 1940s, World War II raged. Adolf Hitler’s forces rampaged Europe, murdering millions of innocent people. At that time, Egypt was not officially involved, but it was occupied by Britain and sent troops to aid in the war effort. Still no miracle. 

In 1952, Egypt fell under the rule of Col. Abdel Nasser, a socialist Arab nationalist who targeted the Coptic Christians by limiting their opportunities for schooling and banning them from holding positions of power. Still no miracle.

Then on April 2, 1968, Mary’s promise to Abraham was fulfilled.

The Apparitions

On April 2, Muslim garage attendant Farouk Mohammad Atwa and a coworker noticed a woman dressed in white standing on the roof of the Coptic Orthodox Church of St. Mary. Assuming that she was a nun with suicidal intentions, Atwa frantically ran over, shouting, “Lady, don’t jump!”

She remained silent and stoic, her hands clasped and her head bowed in silent reverence. The shouts of the two men attracted a small crowd. Those who saw the woman were filled with confusion and awe. One of the Church custodians voiced what everyone was thinking:  “Could that be the Virgin Mary?”

As soon as the words left his mouth, the people agreed that the radiant woman standing over them could be no one but the Queen of Heaven. Although she was visible for only a few minutes, it soon became clear that it was not a solitary occurrence.

For the next three years, Mary returned regularly to Zeitoun. Sometimes, the apparitions occurred as often as two to three times a week. The miraculous appearances drew thousands to Zeitoun from all over the world, all to encounter the Holy Virgin. At the peak, an estimated 250,000 people came each night in hopes of simply glimpsing the Mother of God.

The appearances also followed a pattern.  First, spectators would witness a brilliant ball of light “as bright as a million suns.” The light would slowly morph to take on the form of the Virgin Mary.  She wore long blue and white robes that flowed in the breeze. A halo of blinding light surrounded the crown on her head. Some people saw only the Virgin. Others claimed they saw her with the infant Lord, a 12-year-old Jesus, or her husband, St. Joseph. She was also reported to occasionally carry a cross or an olive branch, the universal symbol for peace.  

Over the three-year span of the apparitions, Mary never uttered a word. She remained in a constant state of prayer, and her actions and body language spoke volumes. Sometimes, she would glide around the domes that decorated the Church’s roof.  Other times, she fell to her knees before the cross above the front entrance. At times, she stood still as a statue for hours on end, her flowing garments the only indication of her corporeality. Occasionally, she would acknowledge the crowds with a gentle smile and a silent blessing.

The Virgin’s appearances in Zeitoun were accompanied by a slew of miraculous events. People reported seeing large, glowing doves fly across the sky in a cross-shaped formation. Mary herself was said to smell of sweet incense so strong it seemed to come from “millions of censors.”  Thousands of onlookers, skeptics included, recounted mysterious flashing lights and shooting stars appearing in the sky at the time of the apparitions. One witness described them as “a shower of diamonds made of light.”  There were also reports of unexplained healings, including curing of blindness, polio, paralysis, cancer, and other terminal illnesses.

Proposed Explanations

The apparitions at Zeitoun came at a time of great scientific breakthroughs and technological growth in the world, and many were skeptical of Mary’s appearances. Critics attempted to discredit the apparitions using logic and science.

Cynthia Nelson, a professor of anthropology at the American University of Cairo, visited the church on several occasions and, despite the reports of regular appearances, claimed she never saw anything she could define as the Virgin Mary. She did, however, conclusively report “intermittent flashes of light” and an ambiguous glowing shape shining through the palm trees, noting that “the source of the light was a mystery, for the streetlights had been disconnected all around the church for several days.”

Two sociologists, Robert Bartholomew and Eric Goode, provided a possible explanation for the mass visions. They hypothesized that the apparitions were a byproduct of mass hysteria resulting from tumultuous current events. Egypt had seen a recent shift from real faith to “human-made ideas and belief systems,” specifically due to the loss of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Because of this increased humanism, they suggested, those who witnessed the apparitions were “predisposed by religious background and social expectation” to assume that the mysterious lights were related in some way to the Virgin Mary.  

Michael P. Carroll, a professor of sociology at the University of Western Ontario, suggested that the “lights of uncertain origin” were merely interpreted by the crowd to be Mary due to societal stress and Mary’s historical and religious association with Zeitoun.

John S. Derr, a researcher with the U.S. Geological Survey, and Michael A. Persinger, a professor of behavioral science at Laurentian University, came up with what they called the tectonic strain theory, which proposes a link between seismic activity in the area and the appearance of the lights (Zeitoun had recently experienced seismic activity prior to the events of 1968-71). However, the theory did not specify how seismic events could have caused the lights.

Testifying in Defense of the Mother of God

The skepticism prompted investigations into the apparitions’ validity. Pope Paul VI came to the conclusion that since she had appeared at a Coptic church, validation of the visions fell to the Coptic religious community. He handed the investigation off to the Coptic pope, Pope Kyrillos VI, who appointed a committee of 12 bishops to investigate. One of them, Bishop Athanasius of Beni Soueiff, spent the entire night of April 29, 1968, documenting his experience: “At dawn, some of those who had come with me came running from the northern street along the church and said: ‘The Lady is over the middle dome,’” he wrote. “There she was, five or six meters above the dome, high in the sky, full figure, like a phosphorous statue, but not so stiff as a statue. There was movement of the body and of the clothing. … She was very quiet, full of glory.”

Pope Kyrillos VI authenticated the apparitions on May 5, 1968, about a month after Mary first appeared. In addition to validation from the Coptic Church, the Egyptian government conducted its own investigation. Zeitoun was ordered to shut off all electricity within a 15-mile radius of the church, but the apparitions continued. Then Nasser himself came to investigate. He witnessed the Mother of God atop the Church of St. Mary, and unable to explain the phenomenon, he and the Egyptian government conceded that the events at Zeitoun were authentic.

In addition to official church and state recognition, millions of personal accounts testify to the validity of the Zeitoun apparitions. While each has its own point of view, they all reflect similarities of a shared group experience. Another Coptic bishop, Bishop Marcos, claimed that when Mary looked upon the crowd, it almost appeared as though “she concentrated her eyes on them exactly.”  Pearl Zaki, an American who had traveled to Zeitoun, wrote, “Yet I think each person present, as I talked with them and understood, felt alone with her and drawn completely to her.” Khairy Maleyk, a Coptic Christian, claimed that he could even see her teeth when she smiled at him. He also recounted a remarkable story: Once, as he was staring at the Virgin, the crowd suddenly turned toward the moon and began shouting. Maleyk, curious to know what had garnered such a reaction, followed the example of the crowd and turned to the moon. He was shocked to find Mary’s “whole face stamped on the face of the moon.”

Several onlookers captured photographs of the events.  Some show the awed faces of incredulous witnesses. Others portray the glowing doves and shooting stars in the night sky. Some were even successful at capturing the image of the Virgin Mary herself, though the validity has been scrutinized and challenged.

The Power of Silence

Mary’s appearances at Zeitoun come with some paradoxes. The Mother of Jesus Christ revealed herself in an Arab nation where Coptics were being oppressed, appearing first to a Muslim 43 years after she’d promised a miracle to a Coptic Christian.  Possibly the most contradictory of these paradoxes is the fact that after years of brutal wars, harsh dictatorships, and political tension, when she finally did return, she seemed to have nothing to say.

The three-year period over which the Virgin appeared in Zeitoun encompassed some of the most tumultuous years in modern history. Dozens of movements fought for their rights against discrimination and segregation. Polarizing conflicts such as the Cold War and the Vietnam War plunged the world into a chaotic spiral of nuclear arms races and ideological cage fights. World leaders, civil rights activists, military specialists, and organized extremist groups shouted over one another, each trying to become the loudest in the room. Yet in Zeitoun, Mary remained uncharacteristically silent. Why?

It can be easy to get so caught up in all the noise that one can lose sight of what’s important. Making yourself heard seems to become the most important thing. It’s important to make one’s voice heard, but not at the expense of what’s really important. Mary’s silent reverence and her connection with the Lord, despite the crowds and cacophony below her, was never broken. She reminded us that only one thing gives people a clear view of what’s important: It’s not making yourself heard to other people, but making yourself known to God.

— Emma Donnelly ’26 is a history major and a student employee in the Marian Library.