U.S. Copts Association

St Mark’s Church in Alexandria has a deep-rooted history. It dates back to St Mark who, from his base in Alexandria, helped spread Christianity further afield.
In his book on the history of the Alexandrian patriarchs, Anba Sawirus Ben Moqafaa, Bishop of Ashmonein and a major historian of the 10th century, wrote that a church had been in existence since AD62 at a place that since the pharaonic era had been called Bokalia, meaning ‘cow pasture’.

Before Alexander founded the city in 331BC the small town nearby was named Rhakotis, and was surrounded by grazing land. The first Christians of Alexandria established their humble church in an area that had once been grassland but was then the eastern part of the city of Alexandria.
Rhakotis itself lives on, since the patriarchs of Alexandria refused to change the Egyptian name or replace it in their official seal with the name of the foreign conqueror, Alexander the Great. The Patriarch’s seal still bears the name Rhakotis in Coptic.

First martyr
Father Youhanna Nassif, the priest of St Mark’s Church in Alexandria, told Watani that in the early ages the church was looked on with suspicion and even hatred by the local people. On the day that the Christians were celebrating Easter in AD68, pagans attacked the church and seized St Mark, tying him with ropes and dragging him along the ground until his head was separated from his body.
Following St Mark’s martyrdom, believers took the body to the church where they held Holy Mass and buried him in a grave on the east side of the Church. On that day, the first church in Egypt was consecrated in the name of its founder and with the blood of Alexandria’s first martyr.
The church was destroyed and rebuilt several times over the centuries. In AD311, when Pope Boutros, known in the Coptic Church as the last of the martyrs, prayed for the last time at the grave of St Mark, the church was a small chapel. In AD321 Pope Achillas expanded the church, which was then still called by its ancient name of Bokalia.
By the time the Arabs entered Egypt in AD641 the church was badly ruined. However, in AD680 Pope Youhanna al-Sammanoudi rebuilt it. In AD828 St Mark’s relics were smuggled from Alexandria to Venice by Italian sailors, while the head was kept in Alexandria. The stolen relics were returned in 1968, at the time of Pope Kyrillos VI, and were placed in a special shrine under St Mark’s Cathedral in Cairo.

Battle zone
The incumbent pope at the time of Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign in July 1798, was Markus VIII. On the pretext that the occupying British forces could use St Mark’s to set up a resistance, Napoleon’s troops broke up the church’s timbers and destroyed its steeples. The priests did their best to protect the church treasures and managed to save some icons, together with some altar utensils, candlesticks and books which they moved to St Mark’s Church in Rashid, 60km east of Alexandria.
The priests endeavoured to rebuild the church, and in 1818 they were able to obtain a faraman (Royal decree) from Mohamed Ali for the purpose. The church was rebuilt and was consecrated a year later by Pope Boutros Gawli.
The church was renovated again in 1870 by Pope Demetrious II, who remodelled it in the Byzantine style with domes suspended on six marble columns and with exquisite marble iconostases to hold 30 icons.

Use of concrete
Until 1935 Alexandria had no Orthodox Church other then St Mark’s. Thus it was a catastrophe when, between January 1950 and November 1952, in the time of Pope Youssab II, the church building collapsed. Another, larger one was quickly built using reinforced concrete. The six marble columns were transferred to the exterior entrance of the church; the iconostases were re-cut and restored, and the two steeples, which were undamaged, were strengthened with concrete and decorated with beautiful Coptic designs. Two bells brought especially from Italy were fixed in the steeples.
The church was again widened on the eastern side between 1985 and 1990, when its total area was doubled and the six marble columns were moved once more to the new west entrance.
Six Coptic mosaic icons hang in the church, the four at the entrance depicting the Virgin Mary, the Archangel Mikhail, St Mark and St George, and the two in the nave depicting St Mina and Anba Antonious. These icons were designed by the famous Egyptian artist Isaac Fanous.
Today the church contains seven altars, among which is a special altar for children in the name of the young saint St Abanoub. In 1990 Pope Shenouda III held the Epiphany Mass on the occasion of the consecration of the widened church altar.

Icons
St Mark’s houses some icons of outstanding beauty.
Four mosaics at the forefront of the church depict the Holy Virgin, St Mark, St George, and St Michael, all of whom are patron saints in whose names the four altars in the church were consecrated. Midway down the nave are two icons of St Mina and St Anthony. The six icons were written by the late iconologist Isaac Fanous who pioneered the modern renaissance movement of Coptic icons.
Two old icons of the Lord Jesus and St Mary, embedded in silver and gold, hang at the entrance.

Reliquary
After the inauguration of the enlarged church in 1990, St Mark’s was one of the largest churches in Africa and the Middle East, capable of holding 1,200 seated worshippers and 1,500 standing.
At the centre of the south side of the church is the entrance to a tomb that contains the relics of patriarchs of the first millennium after Christ. Their names are carved on a marble slab in Coptic, Arabic and Roman scripts. According to tradition, every new pope on assuming office takes a blessing from the head of St Mark. To prevent the relics from being stolen again, the corridor leading to the tomb of the patriarchs is completely off-limits.
On the north-east side of the church is a chamber containing part of St Mark’s relics, above which is an old icon covered with silver depicting the saint.
Surrounding the church are the new papal palace, service buildings including a library, a computer centre and a pre-school for children.