Marian apparitions are reported supernatural appearances by Mary, the mother of Jesus. From the Fourth century to the present, there have been over 21,000 recorded Marian apparitions, and more than 200 of those occurred in the 20th century. One of the most witnessed Marian apparition of the 20th century, and perhaps ever, was at Zeitoun, Egypt from 1968 to 1971.
Kindly watch this video all the way to the end. Something striking happened here, and I admit that (assuming the video isn’t a hoax, along the lines of the countless bogus UFO videos out there) whatever it is resembles in some ways the traditional Catholic image of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It appears to have been recorded with a smartphone. Whoever posted this on Youtube asks whether it’s really Our Lady appearing or a technology-driven light show courtesy of “Project Bluebeam” - something that I’d never known anything about till I Googled it just now. The people in this video are obviously quite agitated by whatever it is they are seeing in the sky. Occasionally, their excitement spikes with startled cries and what sound to me like prayers being shouted. What do you think it is? Do any of you have any info on where and when this happened? The last part of the video shows what appears to be a hologram a cross in the sky somewhere over Russia.
The apparitions first began to appear on 2nd April 1968. On 2 April 1968 around 8:30 pm, a group of Muslim workers at a local public transit garage in a Northern suburb of Cairo known as El-Zeitoun noticed a woman on the top of St. Mary Coptic Church across the street. She appeared to be dressed in white, and they thought she was a nun. They thought that she was about to commit suicide, and shouted at her to not jump.
One of the attendants, Farouk Mohammed Atwa, yelled up to her “Lady, don’t jump!” Two other men also noticed the white figure on the top of the church and the matter was reported to the police. Intrigued by the mechanics yelling "don't jump!", a crowd gathered at the site. The police attempted to disperse them, saying that the sighting was just a reflection of the light from the street lamps. However, a church custodian suggested the figure was the Virgin Mary, which greatly excited the crowd. Nothing happened.
Then, a few moments later a number of women who were walking in the street also noted the woman on the top of the Church, and one of them loudly exclaimed in Arabic that it was “Our Lady” (i.e. the Virgin Mary). At this time, one person ran to contact the emergency services while another one went to get the priest in charge of St. Mary Church, Father Youssef Ibrahim. There was now a crowd gathering in the street, enough to block traffic. But before the emergency services or the priest were able to see the “lady”, it disappeared and the event ended after a few minutes. All this commotion lasted only a few minutes.
Read also: Symbolism in Saint Mary's Iconography
One week later, on 9 April, the phenomenon reoccurred, again lasting for only a few minutes. After that time apparitions became more frequent, sometimes two or three times a week, for several years, ending in 1971. The apparitions were also allegedly witnessed by President Gamal Abdel Nasser, and images photographed by newspaper photographers and Egyptian television. Investigations performed by the police could find no apparent explanation.
No device was found within a radius of fifteen miles capable of projecting the image, and many photos were taken of the alleged apparition by independent photographers. Estimates of the number of observers of the event vary greatly.
Zeitoun is one of the locations where the Holy Family supposedly stopped on their flight to Egypt, fleeing King Herod’s murder of the innocents some nineteen centuries earlier. According to tradition, Zeitoun is on the route that the Holy Family took when fleeing King Herod’s efforts to murder the infant Jesus.
Five years later, the Coptic Orthodox Church of St. Mary was completed. Then, as promised, the miracle happened years later beginning on April 2, 1968.
Coptic Orthodox Church of St. Mary in Zeitoun, Egypt
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Details of the Apparitions
From April 2, 1968 to May 29, 1971, the Virgin Mary appeared weekly on average, especially around feast days, on top of St. Mary’s Coptic Church in Zeitoun for all to see. This was not something just witnessed in a mystical vision by a few; it was a supernatural experience perceived by massive crowds for years.
The Blessed Virgin Mary was witnessed by hundreds of thousands of people, including Copts, Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, and even secular Marxists, like the former Egyptian President Abdel Nasser. This supposedly greatly influenced him in his relations with Christians, who at the time were being targeted: red crosses painted on their houses to mark them. This was also a time of rapid expansion of Islamic fundamentalism. Perhaps, Mary had come to mollify these tensions against Copts and other Christians in this very vulnerable time. Egypt had recently been defeated by Israel ten months earlier in the June 1967 Six-Day War.
The miraculous nature of the apparitions drew Egypt’s full attention. Black and white photographs exist showing a brightly luminous being, the Blessed Virgin Mary, on top the Church. The apparitions would begin with a ball of light gradually materializing, and then, taking on the form of the Virgin Mary. One described Mary as “bright as a million suns.” They called her Our Lady of Light.
The Holy Virgin Saint Mary appeared sometimes in full form and sometimes in a bust, surrounded with a halo of shining light. She was seen at times on the openings of the domes on the roof of the church, and at other times outside the domes, moving and walking on the roof of the church and over the domes. When She knelt in reverence in front of the cross, the cross shone with bright light. Waving Her blessed hands and nodding Her holy head, She blessed the people who gathered to observe the miracle.
She appeared sometimes in the form of a body like a very bright cloud, and sometimes as a figure of light preceded with heavenly bodies shaped like doves moving at high speeds. The description of each apparition as of the time, location and configuration was identically witnessed by all people, which makes this apparition unique and sublime.
Read also: Camp Programs at St. Mary of Egypt
Mary had long white and blue robes, and a veil of bluish-white light. They could see her garments moving in the warm night breeze. She had a dazzling crown on her head with a halo of bright light. Sometimes the witnesses saw her with the infant Jesus, or sometimes with the twelve-year old Jesus, and other times, with St. Joseph. Still other times, she was seen carrying a cross, or an olive branch-a symbol typically for peace and unity.
Despite the length of the apparitions and the number of witnesses, the Blessed Virgin Mary did not speak or deliver any verbal messages. She maintained an attitude of prayer bowing towards the cross and blessing the people. Mary was seen gliding slowly about the domes of the Church, sometimes standing for two to three hours in the same spot, and at times kneeling before the cross on the roof. She acknowledged the people’s presence by smiling at the crowd and blessing them with her hands.
Apparition of the Virgin Mary in Zeitoun
Associated Phenomena
She was accompanied by other phenomenon as well. Large, luminous doves moved swiftly across the sky, and at times flying in formations of two, seven or twelve, and in the shape of a cross. People reported seeing large, glowing doves fly across the sky in a cross-shaped formation. Incense as from “millions of censors” billowed up around her with a sweet fragrance.
There were mysterious flashing lights, a canopy of shooting stars, like “a shower of diamonds made of light,” as one witness recalled. Thousands of onlookers, skeptics included, recounted mysterious flashing lights and shooting stars appearing in the sky at the time of the apparitions.
Two important aspects accompanied these apparitions: The first is an incredible revival of the faith in God, the other world and the saints, leading to repentance and conversion of many who strayed away from the faith. The second are the numerous miracles of healing which were verified by many physicians to be miraculous in nature. Many patients suffering from incurable diseases have been miraculously cured on visiting the Coptic Church at Zeitoun. The papal Committee has examined the cures medically and scientifically. Doctors were amazed, and have officially reported that there was no medical explanation for the cures they had examined.
Here are a few accounts of miraculous healings:
- A lady cried to the Virgin Mary to help her with a malignant tumor in her neck. The Virgin came to her in a dream and told her “Don’t be afraid, I am going to cure you”. Then the Virgin Mary touched the woman’s neck, withdrew the tumour and placed it on a chest of drawers in the bedroom.
- A mother and her child fell under the wheels of a train. The mother was not injured, and her 12-year-old son was saved by a lady, with a bright light emanating from her face, dressed in white. She placed her hand over his head, and said, “Don’t be afraid, I am your Mother, the Virgin Mary.”
- A young man, who was a Deacon at the Virgin’s church, and the only son of a widow volunteered to join the army. On the battlefield he was struck over the heart by a bullet, but the bible in his pocket stopped the bullet.
Official Recognition and Investigations
The Vatican made no official statement on its authenticity, deferring to the Coptic Orthodox Church. The Coptic Church investigated the matter and determined it was an authentic and true phenomenon. The civil government as well concluded that something real was happening at Zeitoun.
The Papal Residence has thoroughly investigated the apparitions and gathered information by way of committes of clergy who have also witnessed the apparitions by themselves and recorded everything in reports presented to His Holiness Pope Kyrillos VI.
Then Nasser himself came to investigate. He witnessed the Mother of God atop the Church of St. Zeitoun was ordered to shut off all electricity within a 15-mile radius of the church, but the apparitions continued.
Pope Kyrillos VI authenticated the apparitions on May 5, 1968, about a month after Mary first appeared. In addition to official church and state recognition, millions of personal accounts testify to the validity of the Zeitoun apparitions.
Skepticism and Alternative Explanations
The only secular, English-language account of the events was provided by Cynthia Nelson, a professor of anthropology at the American University in Cairo. She visited the church site on several occasions including 15 April 1968, another week later near the end of April, and on 1 June 1968. Despite reports of regular appearances of the Virgin Mary, Nelson did not see anything that could be identified clearly as such. Instead she only saw a few "intermittent flashes of light" that she considered to be headlights, and later a glow of ambiguous shape shining through palm trees.
Some authors suggest that the sightings must be considered in context. Professor Michael P. Carroll similarly suggests that the "lights of uncertain origin" were interpreted as Mary due to the societal stresses on Egyptian society at the time, coupled with an association of the Virgin Mary with the Zeitoun area. John S. Derr and Michael A. Persinger propose a possible cause of the lights themselves in Tectonic Strain Theory, the idea that the occurrence of earthquakes causes the appearance of strange lights.
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. 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. Michael P. John 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).
Personal Accounts and Paradoxes
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.”
A certain Coptic Christian, Dr. Khairy Malek, who witnessed the apparitions, said he could even see her teeth when she smiled at them. At one point, the crowd turned and began shouting up towards the moon. When Dr. Malek turned, he saw the Virgin Mary’s “whole face stamped on face of the moon.”
Mary’s appearances at Zeitoun come with some paradoxes. 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.
Mary’s silent reverence and her connection with the Lord, despite the crowds and cacophony below her, was never broken. It’s important to make one’s voice heard, but not at the expense of what’s really important. 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.
Possible Interpretations and Significance
Blogger and author Emmet O’Regan has pointed out that 1968-1971 was the very same timeframe for the mass legalization of abortion. In April 1968, the very same month that Zeitoun began, the United Kingdom enacted the Abortion Act. This was the initial break in the dam inundating the world with legalized abortion. This quickly spread to the United States in loosening abortion laws in 1969, and soon thereafter, Roe v. Wade was argued in 1971, and decided on January 22, 1973. This opened the doors to the mass slaughter of the innocents worldwide.
Zeitoun is very much like Blessed Virgin Mary’s dramatic and unprecedented warning at Fatima in 1917, just before the unleashing of the errors of Communism upon the world in the Russian Revolution. Yet, at Zeitoun there were no messages, no visions, and no secrets. Mary’s message was her silent presence in that time and at that location. The Blessed Virgin Mary came, again, in unprecedented fashion in Zeitoun, perhaps, to warn the world of new evils that were about to be unleashed upon it - this time with abortion.
Maybe not coincidentally, apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary were seen there in 2000-2001, and again, in 2006, in Assiut - which is also traditionally the southernmost point that the Holy Family travelled to in their Egyptian flight. Another purported apparition, then, occurred in Warraq, Egypt in 2009, among other locations. Was the Blessed Virgin Mary retracing the steps of the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt some two millennia later?
In these unprecedented revelations, the Blessed Virgin Mary came to Zeitoun as Our Lady of Light, that is, the Woman clothed with the Sun with a crown on her head, much like the great portent that appears in Heaven (Rev. 12:1).
On 12 May 2018, the Coptic Church celebrated the golden Jubilee of the event.
Route of the Holy Family in Egypt
The Greatest Marian Apparition | Our Lady of Zeitoun
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