In all the years I spent in Sunday School growing up, paying rapt attention to my hard-working teachers, I never remember the question of what Jesus and his parents actually did in Egypt during their brief exile to escape Herod's angry response to the quiet departure of the Wise Men. Matthew is the only Gospel writer to tell the story, and his account is a mere six verses.
Tradition, on the other hand, clearly treasured in Egypt, can provide many details and a number of revered sites. One is just outside of Asyut. The Virgin Mary Monastery in Dronka is built into a cave on the side of a mountain outside of Asyut. The cave is the most southern point the Holy Family is believed to have lived during their exile. It is a seriously long hike if one is traveling by foot and donkey.
How much of this traditional narrative is factual as we think of it is impossible to say, but it is held to be authentic by the Coptic Church. Pilgrims come here as they would to any site regarded as holy. Many will stay for retreats as well as to worship at this place, so new facilities are being constructed to accommodate them.
The cave itself is huge, not at all the kind of cave one might imagine for spelunking that would require a headlamp and belly crawls. My photographs are not very clear but this one will provide a sense of scale and modern amenities -- electric lights, paved floors, walls to restrain those who would travel into dangerous spaces, pews and an altar for worship services.
One of the most interesting features for me were the stylized painting of the Holy Family depicting them at various points on their journey. The one below shows Mary and Jesus riding a donkey with Joseph walking with the Nile in the background. There is a sailing craft in the background, which suggests river travel as an alternative to travel by foot and is in fact thought to be their form of travel back home.
There were perhaps a dozen of these semi-circular painting around the room.
The community below the Monastery at the foot of the mountain features traditional square structures of brick; and beyond that, in the flat valley, farmland.
Turning my attention just to the right of the square buildings and clearly a part of the Monastery complex is a domed chapel under construction. I always find construction materials and methods interesting, especially when they differ in significant ways from our own. In China it was the bamboo scaffolding that drew my attention. Here it is the ladder up over the central dome.
Perhaps the most encouraging element of a visit like this is the presence of crosses atop churches. Christians have been a continuing presence in Egypt longer than they have anywhere else on earth. Certainly longer than the church has been present in North America.
Now when I think about those six verses in Matthew that tell us about our Lord's "flight to Egypt," I will have some more specific idea about what that flight might have entailed.
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