Coptic church,The hanging church or (El Muallaqa Chuech in Arabic) at old cairo(part two)
8/30/2014 04:00:00 PM
Hello everybody, in the past Week we were in The hanging church and reached the location of the church so in this article we are going to complete our tour
So lets start with
History of the church:
No precise date can be fixed for this church. It was demolished
several times and restored many times may be it dates back to the 7th
century.
It was probably built during the patriarchate of Isaac (690-92),
probably on the site of an earlier church dates back to 3rd or 4th century
church.
The earliest references to the church seems to be the statement in
the biography of the patriarch Yusab I, the 52nd
patriarch of Alexandria (830- 849) where we read that he came to the church
which is in the fortress of Babylon, called the suspended.
It has been restored many times since then, including a major
rebuild under Patriarch Abraham in the (975-978) 10th century. ( 62nd
Partrich of Alexandria)
Under the patriarch Zacharia 64th patriarch of
Alexandria (1004-1032) the caliph el Hakem (996-1021) encircled the church by a
wall
The Architectural Design of the Church:
The construction of the church may be divided into two parts that
of the principle church and the little church.
The principle church
The entrance:
It consisting of an open courtyard giving an access to the
staircase consisting of 29 steps.
The facade of the church dates back to the 19th century, It consisting of two belfries ( bell tower) between the pediment.
The narthex: (scene of the three internal entrances)
it has three entrances the northern and southern doors are opened
while the central one is blind.
Each one is surmounted by lobbed pointed blind arch.
In the center there is a circular medallion containing a verse from
the holy bible.
The arches here are decorated with geometrical and floral motifs
The doors here are made out of wood with double valves, they are
decorated with geometrical and floral motifs
The interior of the church (the central nave)
The hanging church is built according to the Basilican order. The
area of the church is 23.5 meters long by 18.5 meters wide and it is 9.5 meters
high.
It is consists of a central nave flanked by two side aisles,
separated from the side aisles by two rows of columns, each row consists of
eight white marble columns.
There is one column built of black basalt. the columns are joined at the top by set of wooden architraves or wooden tie-beams
surmounted by semi circular arches. On
the architraves are decorated with verses from the holy bible.
Some of the capitals are Corinthian, and so were probably removed
from older buildings.
Between the nave and the north aisle there three columns extended
by arches.
The ceiling of the nave is made out of wood and vaulted in shape to
resemble the Ark of Noah.
Here we
finish the second part of our tour and we hope you enjoyed reading it so wait
the next article to finish our tour in The Hanging church Next Week at 4:00 pm
and now If
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