Some More Questions From Dimitris

I actually like this question and answer exchange that Dimitris has started. It makes me feel like I am not 'pissing in the wind' so to speak. In any event here is his latest question:

I was in alexandria and to tell you the truth I dont see the christianity that I see at other countries like syria its just the proto-christians never have a construction of other churches its a paradox

To my other readers, I have noticed that Greek speaking people use this term 'proto-Christianity' to refer - I think - to the tradition before what we now accept to be Christianity.

To reformulate Dimitri's request, we are left with the intriguing question about that oft quoted statement we read about in books about early Egyptian Christianity, namely that before the time of Demetrius the Twelfth Patriarch of Alexandria there was only one church in all of Egypt. While the name of this church is not explicitly named, we know from other sources that it is the Church of St Mark also identified as the martyrium of St. Mark.

In Severus of Al'Ashmunein we hear another part of Demitris' observation referenced - namely that it is said that up until the fourth century Christians in Egypt gathered together in caves and tombs. This is reflected in anti-Arian polemics in the fourth century too where the Arians are identified as continuing this practice.

I can't explain why Christians should have gathered in caves. But I can offer my observations about why there was only one church in all of Egypt.

I happen to have a good friend (as I have no real friends anyone who will put with me for more than five minutes qualifies as a 'good friend') named Harry Tzalas who I actually met thanks to Birger Pearson.

In any event Tzalas is an underwater researcher who happens to have jurisdiction over the region of Alexandria that happens to correspond to the Jewish quarter of the city in the first century. He also grew up in Alexandria and saw what was called in his day 'the Basilica of St. Mark.' IT was a church that happened to be built on the location of previous incarnations of the holy building dedicated to the Evangelist dating back to at least the second century (cf To Theodore).

Tzalas began his correspondence with me by noting that:

Chatby coastline has dramatically changed since the 9th century. Depths have changed probably by 3 or 4 meters and after the construction of the Corniche coastal road and the heavy construction of all the suburb in the early 20th century it is no recognisable.

In the last thirty years a cafe was built over the ruins of the church called the Casino Chatby. As Tzalas notes:

The Casino of Chatby is smaller that a Basilica; but it is not necessarily on that stone platform [on which the Casino stands] that the Basilica stood. My impression is that on the site of the Martyrium --originally a small chapel built on the tomb-- a larger church was then erected, but not only a church...there were certainly many other buildings. We have to think of something that attracted pilgrims so there was the necessity of more than a church.

The fact that in 1218 the governor of Alexandria decided to put down the church, because he feared that it could be used by an enemy army as a stronghold for an attack, speaks for itself. A church, even a large church, would not present a threat but there probably was a complex of buildings.

Harry Tzalas happens to have a large collection of paintings of the Basilica, recalling how it towered over the eastern harbor. He was kind enough to send along some photos and notes:


Going through my collection of old Alexandrian maps I did find an interesting Latin legend on the well-known 16th century of the Braun & Hogenberg map.

If you look at this map, in attachment, it is noted on the image of a church located near the Porte du Caire [Bab El Rashid, Eastern Gate or Gate of Rosetta] "Beneath this stone the body of St. Mark was discovered. possessed [now] by Venice.."

We know of the numerous topographical mistakes of these early maps which were most of the time a compilations of ear-say and interpretations of earlier maps, but the noted church is certainly the Coptic Church of St. Mark. It confirms the legend related by many travellers that it is from that burial that the body was taken to Venice.

Of course this does not authenticate the relic, it is just an indication that the Copts succeeded after the 16th century to persuade pilgrims that they had their church built on the tomb of the martyr.

I have also gone trough some 20 relations of travellers from the 15th to the 19th century mentioning the throne of St. Mark in the old Coptic church that still stand in Alexandria and where their patriarchs are buried. Some say that the throne is very old made of wood and in a derelict condition, some other say that it is covered with coloured marble [opus sectilae]; when I have some free moment I will make a list of these travellers. The fact is that the last evidence we have of a church and a martyrium of St. Mark on the Eastern Coast of Alexandria if the Plan of Simancas made in 1603 after that it is only the Coptic church in the centre of the walled city that is shown as such.

Yet it was only when Tzalas sent me the map of the location of streets in Alexandria which hadn't really changed since the time of St. Mark that I started to formulate an answer to the idea of how or why Egyptian Christianity could have functioned with one church up until the time of Demetrius. Tzalas wrote:

The Mahmoud El Falaki plan of ancient Alexandria, the most serious cartographic attempt to understand the hypodamean grid of ancient Alexandrian streets [based on trenches that El Falaki dug in the 1860's] show the site of the alleged Martyrdom in between two large streets running perpendicularly to the coast. Until the early 1900, when the Corniche road was opened, there was no road running parallel to the sea.

I am attaching a photograph of the El Falaki map. In the count the ancient streets marked in red, from right to left, it is the second and the third perpendicular streets. The annotation near the letter "Beta" says "santon Chatiby" [it translates as Sidi Chatby, the burial of a holy Muslim man called Chatby that has given the name to this suburb, in fact that chapel with the burial -- a tourba-- was removed some 110 years ago, when the coastal road was built. It is now incorporated in a modern small mosque just across St. Mark College...another relic!]. That location coincide with the proposed site of the St. Mark Martyrium.

But you may wonder that the Easter walls of the city as proposed by El Falaki go much further than the Martyrium location. El Falaki did arbitrarily expand the fortifications eastwards, without having any tangible remains, so the walls of the Alexandria of the 4th and 5th century, when the legend of the martyrium did first start were probably passing exactly at Chatby [then called "Boukolia" or "Boukolou" or any other derive of this word], later the fortification shrunk and the walls went a little further West.



What I ended up doing was comparing the topographical description of the environ which surrounded the Christian martyrium of St. Mark in the Passio Petri Sancti with the description of the events described in relation to the great Jewish synagogue of Alexandria and realized that the two buildings had to have been one and the same place or that the martyrium was built on top of the synagogue.

I am not the first person to connect the description that emerges from the Passio with that of Flaccus. Birger Pearson did so before me. Yet I was hesitant to identify one with the other owing to the assumption that the Jewish rebellion in Alexandria in the Trajanic period must have demolished the famous 'double stoa' building.

All that I can say now is that our information about the revolt is not nearly as precise as it should be. Was this yet another case of exaggeration of the scale of the retribution against Jews in the period? Were Jews already distinguished from Christians in the period and living in another part of the city? And then my ultimate hypothesis - could the Christians have inherited the massive synagogue BEFORE the uprising? This is my assumption. I also think that the martyrium of St. Mark was something which existed further up the road. But that's another argument.

The point is that I can explain that the idea that there was only one church in all of Egypt up until the time of Demetrius by the fact that this building was so massive that it likely served all the Jews lower Egypt and that only when the numbers of Christians went past those of the Jews in Egypt did Demetrius have to expand the number of churches and bishoprics.