Simon The Tanner Church

The Monastery of Saint Simon the Tanner isn’t very famous but it’s considered to be one of the most amazing landmarks in Cairo, it derived its name from Saint Simon the Tanner who lived during Al Muizz Li Din Ellah who was a Fatimid Caliph, it also was discovered inside ElMokattam Mountain, which was moved as a miracle from the God and the intercession of Virgin Mary helped St. Simon the Tanner.

 

Get the chance to walk inside this marvelous church with Flying Carpet Tours and explore more about it as this massive church contains a huge space that can hold thousands of people and its benches were made of big slaps of polished stone, therefore its shape from inside is looking like a massive amphitheater, as it includes many fabulous carvings on its rocks that were made by either Portugal or Italian man who married a Coptic woman. 

 

Moreover it includes three sets of caves and one of these caves is huge as it was designed to contain about 10,000 people, the second one is middle in its size and contains about 2,000, as well as the last one is the smallest among them and contains about just 200 people, it also was believed that this church was under the control of Anba Abram and St. Simon was working in a craft widespread in Babylon which is known as the Hanging Church and he was called St. Simon the Tanner and the Shoemaker.