Cave Temple in Cairo

The Monastery of St. Simon, also known as the Cave Temple, is located in the Mokattam Mountains in the southeast of the Egyptian capital. This area is called the "garbage city" due to the fact that many scavengers or zabbalins live here. The Zabbalins are descendants of peasants who began migrating from Upper Egypt to Cairo in the 1940s. Fleeing from poverty and poor harvests, they arrived in the city in search of work and founded a kind of peasant settlements on the territory of the capital. At first, they adhered to their traditions: they bred pigs, goats, chickens and other animals, but eventually they realized that collecting and sorting city garbage was a much more profitable business. Zabbalins look through the garbage, choosing the most valuable things, and organic waste is an excellent source of food for their animals. In general, this activity turned out to be so successful that more and more immigrants come from Upper Egypt to the new "garbage villages" of Cairo…

For years, these Zabbaleen settlements have been moving around the city to avoid meetings with the city authorities.

Finally, a large group of Zabbaleen settled under the cliffs of Mokattam in the eastern part of the city.

As a result, the population of these settlements grew from 8,000 people in the early 1980s to about 30,000 inhabitants.

Egypt is a Muslim country, but the Zabbaleen are Coptic Christians, at least 90% of them.

Christian communities are quite rare in Egypt, so the Zabbaleen prefer to stay in Mokkatame, within their religious community, even though many of them can afford to live in other places.

The local Coptic Christian Church in Mokattame was built in 1975.

After that, the Zabbalins felt safer and only then began to use more durable building materials, such as stone and bricks, for the construction of their homes.

Given their previous experience with eviction from Giza in 1970, it is not surprising that the Zabbalins lived in temporary huts.

In 1976, a major fire broke out in Manshiyat Nasir, which led to the construction of the first church under Mount Mokattam on an area of 1000 sq.m.

Several more churches were built in the caves found in the mountain.

Of these, the Monastery of St. Simon the Tanner is the largest and can accommodate 20,000 people.

In general, the cave church of St. Simon in Mokattameh is the largest in the Middle East.