What is the role of church architecture in Egypt?

Dr. Aziz Surial Atiya states, “Though many ancient Coptic monuments suffered greatly from hostile incursions and many more fell into disuse and were ruined, a representative number of monastic and church structures have survived in their early original forms. Consequently, the archaeologist has been able to construct a fair picture of the essentials of Coptic architecture … Some of these are known, but unexcavated, while innumerable others are still undiscovered and untouched.”¹¹⁹⁰

It is noteworthy that church buildings in Egypt were exposed to a number of successive waves of demolition, destruction, and burning; sometimes by pagans and at other times by rulers such as the Romans, Mamelukes, Turks … etc. to the extent that currently not a single church in the whole of Alexandria could be traced back to the first three centuries. Even the ancient churches of Old Cairo and the monuments in Upper and Lower Egypt can be traced back to sometime after the third century.

However, despite the above facts, architects confirm that Egypt must have possessed a good collection of large and valuable churches that distinctly influenced architecture in the early church and its arts. Rykwert says, “The contribution of Alexandria to the general development of church architecture is very difficult to estimate; Alexandrian churches unlike those of Constantinople were not simply altered by the modern invaders to suit their use, but were mostly destroyed or rendered unrecognizable.”¹¹⁹¹

1189 Origen, Homilies on Exodus 9.1 (FOTC 71:338–341).

1190 Aziz Surial Atiya, History of Eastern Christianity (University of Notre Dame Press, 1967): p. 136.

1191 J. Rykwert, Church Building, Faith and Fact Books (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1966): p. 63.