Our Lady of Al-Warrāq

Marian vocation of Cairo (Egypt)
Popular devotion (not officially recognized by the Church)

It is reported that in December 2009 an alleged Marian apparition took place in the Cairota district of Al-Warrāq (Warrak), presented in the sources as "the last great Marian apparition in Egypt." According to the devotional tradition, the figure of the Virgin appeared around a Coptic church in the neighborhood, in the line of the luminous phenomena attested in Egypt from Zeitún. There is no formal ecclesiastical approval of the fact in the sources provided.

Main data

Origin and history

It is reported that in December 2009 an alleged Marian apparition took place in the Cairota district of Al-Warrāq (Warrak), presented in the sources as "the last great Marian apparition in Egypt." According to the devotional tradition, the figure of the Virgin appeared around a Coptic church in the neighborhood, in the line of the luminous phenomena attested in Egypt from Zeitún. There is no formal ecclesiastical approval of the fact in the sources provided.

The image and the sanctuary

The phenomenon is narrated as a luminous apparition of the Virgin over a coptic temple of Al-Warrāq in Cairo, without a material image directly linked. There is no documented and verifiable description of the exact place or of a sanctuary formally erected following the event.

Sponsorship and coronation

There is no canon patronage or canon coronation of any image associated with this alleged apparition.

Party and devotion

There is no liturgical party of its own. Devotion is part of the Egyptian Marian sensitivity linked to modern luminous apparitions, but it is an alleged phenomenon, not officially recognized in available sources.

Link to the Rosary

As in all Egyptian Marian piety, prayer to Mary in Al-Warrāq is lived between Coptic and Catholic Christians with pleas, hymns and Marian prayers for peace; the Rosary accompanies this confidence in the intercession of the Mother of Light, although sources do not document a specific link of the place with the Rosary.