Saint Mary Church – Faggala

Project details

• Location: Faggala, Cairo
• Date Constructed: 1884

“St Mary’s Church in Faggala is one of the oldest churches in Cairo. Faggala was given its current name because its land was famous for figl, Arabic for radishes.”

“In Khedive Ismaïl’s time, many wealthy Copts bought land in Faggala on which the palaces of that earlier era lay in ruins. One of the famous families that moved in was the Gad Shiha al-Ghamrawi family, who built St Mary’s Church in 1884. By then the number of Coptic families in the area had greatly increased. The idea of building this church to absorb the region’s Copts was the brainchild of Demian Bey Gad, who was an accountant at the Finance Ministry, and his brother Wassef Effendi. Demian died before the project saw the light, but his brother, Mikhail Bey Gad, took charge of the church project and succeeded in obtaining an official decree to establish it in 1884, during the reign of Khedive Tawfiq.”

“Another famous family residing in Faggala was that of Egypt’s then Prime Minister Boutros Ghali, and it was the birthplace of his grandchild Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the secretary-general of United Nations from 1992 till 1996.”

“Faggala Street is now named Kamel Sidqi Street in honor of Kamel Sidqi Pasha (1890–1946), president of the Lawyers’ Syndicate and Finance Minister in 1944.”

Ref.: Watani