By Ioannis Fourtounas
When King Herod learned from the Magi that Christ had been born, he asked them, once they had found Him, to inform him so that he might supposedly go and worship Him.
In reality, however, he wished to destroy Him.
For this reason an angel warned Joseph to take the Child and His Mother and depart for Egypt, so that the Scripture might be fulfilled which says, “Out of Egypt I called My Son” (Matt. 2:15).
The choice of Egypt was made because it lay outside Herod’s jurisdiction, because it was accessible through established trade routes, and also because of the large Jewish community living there.
After various stops along the way, according to local tradition, they found hospitality in the ancient city of Babylon, where even today there exists the cave of their dwelling in the land of the Nile.
According to early Christian traditions, the Divine Child, His Mother, Joseph, and James the brother of the Lord traveled to twenty-six locations in Egypt and remained in the land of the Nile for three years, six months, and ten days.
From the northeastern borders of Sinai they crossed the fertile Nile Delta and passed through the Nitrian Desert, reaching the heart of central Egypt, where the city of Babylon was located.
This saving journey has both its divine and its geographical coordinates, attested through enduring architectural and ecclesiastical testimonies, as well as through historic shrines and early Christian churches.
The stops along this sacred route became archaeological stations of the divine presence, where, according to Eastern traditions, the “Holy Family” dwelt for shorter or longer periods of time.
At each station there is an ancient shrine, a very old church in memory of the Holy Family, healing springs, and venerable, centuries-old trees beneath which the Divine Child and His Mother rested.
Moreover, the sacred places along the journey became Christian centers of worship, sometimes through the founding of churches and at other times through the building of holy monasteries, such as the Church of Saint Sergius in Cairo or the Monastery of Deir el-Muharraq in Upper Egypt.
June 1, the day dedicated to the Entry of Christ into Egypt, draws to the churches both Christians and people of other faiths, who celebrate together in shared cultural events with festivals, religious ceremonies, and traditional performances.
Even today, pilgrims wishing to honor this sacred journey follow this very route, traveling about three and a half kilometers to Upper Egypt, which is considered their final station.
It is worth noting that the Flight into Egypt is a very popular theme in the country, and this sacred remembrance of the coming of the Divine Child is greatly revered, while the local churches celebrate it with a great influx of pilgrims.
The feast of the Flight into Egypt of the “Holy Family,” the flower-adorned celebration of Palm Sunday, as well as the Feast of the Panagia, are among the most important feasts and festivals of the local Church.
The first stop on their journey was Pharamia, ancient Pelusium, east of present-day Port Said, where at today’s shrine it is believed that the altar slab served as a place of rest for Jesus.
From the coastal region the “Holy Family” headed inland toward Tel Basta, near modern Zagazig in the center of the Nile Delta and equidistant from Cairo, where dramatic supernatural phenomena occurred.
The foundations of the temple shook and the pagan idols collapsed with a crash, while fresh water sprang forth from the arid ground, providing the means of survival —a precious spring that today is protected by a barrier.
Ten kilometers from Cairo lies Al-Mahama, the place of the ritual baths.
Here the Virgin Mary bathed the Divine Child in waters that miraculously welled up, while a 12th-century structure surrounds the sacred basin.
Not far from Al-Mahama is the site known as “The Foot of Jesus,” an extraordinary stone relic bearing the natural imprint of the foot of Jesus, where many miracles occur.
At a distance of 114 kilometers from Cairo, Wadi Natrun is the place where miraculous water sprang forth from ground filled with nitrates and vapors, and where later thousands of monks settled.
In the Matariya district of Cairo, it is believed that an ancient tree hid the Holy Family and protected them from danger, while nearby Jesus blessed a spring where the Virgin Mary washed.
Then the Virgin Mary washed the swaddling clothes and poured the water onto the ground, and thus an aromatic plant sprang up in that place, with a beautiful fragrance — the balsam plant, or fraxinanthus.
This tree, a kind of very ancient sycamore, fell and brought down the wall that surrounded it. When I visited the pilgrimage site in 1997, I saw it completely dried out, with only a small shoot at one point.
G. Ebers, in his book Picturesque Egypt (1878), refers to the testimony of a traveler from 1672 who mentions the tree and says that the monks in Cairo told him it had died of old age in 1656.
They also told him that the tree was called “The Tree of the Virgin,” and they took him to a special place where they showed him its remains, which they had preserved with reverence as a precious treasure.
A leaf of the tree in the collection of Norbert Schiller was wrapped in paper bearing the inscription: “A branch from the fig tree near Cairo, under which the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph rested during their flight into Egypt.”
Unfortunately, many pilgrims, out of piety, cut off leaves and bark and inscribed their names for a blessing - marks that can still be read today on the dried trunks — thus causing its complete destruction.
It is not clear what exact species of tree it was. The earliest records mention the balsam tree; travelers also speak of a fig or a palm, while the tree planted in 1672 was a plane tree.
The Venetian traveler Mariano Sanuto in 1321 speaks of a palm tree that bowed down before the Virgin Mary so that she could gather dates from it and then stood upright again, and of the spring where the Virgin washed the swaddling clothes of the Divine Child.
The pilgrimage site includes a cave, a well, and the Tree of the Virgin, which to this day remains a famous cultural and religious shrine for pilgrims and visitors from many parts of the world.
The name Matariya derives from the Greek word "Meter" (Mother) and is due to the presence of the Tree of the Virgin, while later the settlement was called Ezbet El-Nakhl, meaning “village of dates.”
The next stop was ancient Babylon, located in what is now Old Cairo before the new city existed, in the crypt of the ancient Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus, which today belongs to the Coptic Church.
However, based on historical testimonies and the earliest evidence, the cave of the Holy Family is located at the Greek Orthodox Monastery of Saint George in Old Cairo, in the cemetery of the Romioi.
There, beneath the cemetery church of the Virgin Mary, lies the authentic cave with the well that to this day is used for holy water and blessings for the numerous pilgrims of different Christian confessions and even other religions.
The “Holy Family” departed for Upper Egypt for greater safety, first westward to Maadi, and then boarded a sailing vessel and began their journey along the Nile to the cities of Minya and Assiut.
Here the angel appeared to Joseph a second time and informed him that King Herod had died; they were now safe and could return without fear or danger to Palestine.
In remembrance of the ascent of the “Holy Family,” every year on the feast commemorating the “Flight into Egypt,” the bishop of Upper Egypt boards a boat and, with the icon, symbolically journeys southward.
The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism officially inaugurated the Trail of the Holy Family in 2022, creating connections among twenty-five documented stations in eight governorates. The designated pilgrimage circuit includes:
- the documented miraculous spring at Tel Basta;
- the group of four surviving ancient monasteries of Wadi El Natrun with their remarkable medieval iconographic programs;
- the botanical miracle of Matariya — the Tree of the Virgin beside the historic balsam plantations;
- the Church of Saint Sergius in Old Cairo, built above the documented underground refuge;
- the ecclesiastical complex of Maadi on the riverbank, which houses the miraculous “Bible” found floating in the waters of the Nile in 1976;
- the precipitous shrine of Gabal al-Tair, which preserves what is believed to be a divine handprint.
The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria celebrates annually the feast of the Flight into Egypt on December 26, and the Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa presides over the events at the Church of the Panagia of Heliopolis.
The Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa, His Beatitude Theodore II, in a recent message to the whole world on the occasion of Christmas, delivered from the Cave of the Divine Child, stated among other things:
“The God-trod land of Egypt hosted within her womb the little Christ, so that from that time until today she might have the blessing of a great and hospitable country, in which the Most Holy Theotokos, with her beloved Son, Jesus Christ, came as poor refugees from Jerusalem to Cairo.”
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
