21 - 27 December 2000
Issue No.513
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 21 - 27 December 2000 Issue No.513 |
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Man on a mission
By Mary Fikry
"Photography is my hobby," Father Angeles remarks humbly, but the term doesn't do his awe-inspiring work justice. Through his lens, well-known churches and monasteries, as well as lesser-known holy sites, are given new life. Icons, springs and historic relics veer into view with ascetic clarity. This is no ordinary photography exhibition; it's a religious experience.
His camera slung over his shoulder, Father Angeles is an accidental tourist. A monk at the Monastery of Saint Mina, in Maryut, southwest of Alexandria, he has travelled the country photographing Christian holy sites. He has passed through countless villages and cities, followed desert roads and wound his way around canals. He's followed in the footsteps of the Holy Family, tracking the flight through Egypt from El-Farama to Durunka, but he has brought new meaning to the term religious tourism. In his hands, ordinary sites become remarkable imagery -- a photograph of the Church of Saint Mary in Zeitoun, where in 1968 it is said that the a vision of the Virgin Mary appeared over the dome of the building, makes the church look more like a palace. A picture of the ancient refectory table, where monks of the Monastery of Saint Makar, in Wadi Natrun, once took their meals, is rendered a remarkable image of austerity and beauty; the six-metre-long table is illuminated by the elegant domes and arches under which it sits. From the same monastery, we are offered a bridge from old to new; a photograph shows ancient cells alongside new buildings.
It wasn't always so. When sculptor Sabry Nashed visited the monastery, Father Angeles explained, "he saw how interested I was in fashioning objects from wood and taught me the art of wood-carving. It's a lovely medium to work with." Father Angeles took to sculpture, but problems with his arm and an operation on his eye made it difficult to work and his doctors advised that he give up woodworking. The fathers at the monastery gave him a camera instead. "Now I can photograph things of beauty, rather than make them," he said.
He started out as any amateur photographer, snapping off pictures of flowers and the world around him. "Then I moved on to icons," he says, "and soon I found myself photographing churches and altars." Encouraged by his results, Father Angeles started his travels. In a six-month period, he visited 54 Christian sites in Egypt -- a pilgrimage in its own right, but all the more numinous for the works he produced. You and I might never have known about it, however, were it not for artist Makram Hunin, who visited the monastery and suggested that the pictures be assembled into an exhibition. "Father Armia, a member of the Church Committee, recommended we choose photographs of the places visited by the Holy Family on their journeys in Egypt," Father Angeles explained, and things fell into place from there. The result is an exhibition of some 3,000 photographs, on display at the Monastery of Saint Mina for the next six months.
It is an impressive exhibition and the trip out to the monastery is worth it for a virtual tour of Coptic Egypt, past and present. I stopped before a picture of the El-Hamra Spring at Wadi Natrun, an unusual picture showing blocks of stone leading to what appears to be a covered well in the middle of a lake. Father Angeles explained: "This is a fresh-water spring in a salt-water lake. When the Holy Family passed through here, they were thirsty but they couldn't drink the water." Upon their arrival, the story goes, fresh water flowed to the surface and people continue to visit the site today. "Egyptians and foreigners come to taste the water: sweet in the well, salty in the lake. It is a true miracle," Father Angeles said.
INSPIRED VISION: Images included in the exhibit of Father Angeles' photographs provide a starkly beautiful view of Christian sites and follow his travels around the country. At the Monastery of Saint Makar (top left), new monks' cells lie in the shadow of new buildings; the restored Saint Mary's church in Zeitoun (left) has seen visitations by the Holy Virgin; looking like a ship sailing into the blue horizon, an image of the Monastery of the Syrians at Wadi Natrun (top of page) is the star of the exhibition; lesser known religious artefacts, like the ancient well visited by the Holy Family in Samanoud (bottom left) and an ancient bowl for mixing the dough of sacred bread, in the Delta village of Aba Nub (above), are given a chance to shine.
A photo of a large bowl for mixing dough caught my eye and Father Angeles stepped in to explain. "It is a magour for the sacred bread," he said. The bowl is housed in the church of the Delta village of Aba Nub. "It is the very one used by the Holy Family in the first century," he added, before guiding me to a picture of a place known as Al-Manshobia. "It is a small building on the outskirts of Deir El-Suryani (the Monastery of the Syrians) at Wadi Natrun," he explained. Once inhabited by five or six monks in the fourth century, the building is a rare look at Coptic architecture of the time, as very few such buildings survive today. Air vents in the walls kept the air in the living quarters from growing stale and unhealthy. Most buildings like this have been destroyed by urban expansion and rural development.
As Father Angeles takes me through the exhibit, I absorb the images and the stories behind them. I follow the Holy Family in their wanderings, their need for shelter and potable water. There is a fine photograph of Saint Mary's church at Gebel El-Tair ("Mount of the Birds") in Middle Egypt, which was built by the order of Queen Helena (mother of the Emperor Constantine). A sacred well at Tel Basta, in the Delta, was only discovered recently. "It was a village full of pagans," Father Angeles recounts. "Their temples collapsed as soon as the Holy Family entered."
Standing before a photograph of an icon of Jesus surrounded by angels from the Church of Abu-Seifein (the name, meaning "he of two swords", refers to Saint Mercurius) in Old Cairo, I asked Father Angeles which was his favourite picture. He spread his arms is sweeping movement, indicating all of the works. Preferences seem to come from that which is pictured, not the image he has taken. He spoke with particular fondness of one icon, located at Al-Muharraq Monastery. "I love this icon because it shows Jesus walking. He is not the child being carried, but bigger, about four years old, perhaps on his return to Palestine from Egypt."
Of the exhibit, one picture does stand out and numerous pilgrims and travellers who have visited the monastery and seen Father Angeles' work have commented on it. The striking 175cm by 125cm print depicts Deir El-Suryani from an angle that gives it the look of ship, lit up against a dark sky. In the background is the nearby Monastery of Anba Bishoy, also lit up. Father Angeles is not shy about his muse and this picture seems to say it all: God, the source of light, dispels darkness.
Father Angeles' photographs will be on display at the Monastery of Saint Mina for six months
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