Extraordinary Apparitions in Zeitoun, Egypt (II)

The apparitions of the Blessed Virgin were indeed visible to many people, for long periods of time, over a span of several weeks, and crowds often reached a total of 250,000 people, causing enormous traffic jams. On April 13, 1968, the photographer Wagih Rizk Matta was the first to take some amazing photographs of the apparitions and he was cured right there and then of a wound on his arm, just as many others who were also cured while visiting the site. Since 1969, the Coptic Orthodox Church added the Feast of the Transfiguration of Mary in Zeitoun to its liturgical calendar, which is now celebrated each year on April 2nd. What could be the significance of such impressive manifestations of the Virgin? Zeitoun in Arabic means "Arabic olives", and the olive-tree, whose branch the Blessed Virgin held in her hands at the time of some of her apparitions, is a well-known symbol of peace and very welcome at the time when the Coptic minority was threatened by oppression and The Six Day War of 1967, plunging the Middle East into mourning. Following the capture of Jerusalem by the Israelis, it became practically impossible for Coptic Christians to go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land. Jehan Sadate, the widow of the assassinated President, wrote the following words in the name of the Blessed Virgin in her autobiography entitled A Woman of Egypt (1987): "People of Egypt, I know that you are no longer able to come to see me in Jerusalem. So I have come to see you in Cairo."