An apparition of Mary in a luminous boat

In the first year after the foundation of the Deir Al-Maghti monastery in Lower Egypt, in the 15th century, the monks gathered in the church saw a column of light slightly touching the altar, that turned into a luminous boat carrying the Virgin, the angels, saints (including the apostles and holy horsemen, saints Theodore, George, and Mercurius), and the Holy Innocent exterminated on orders given by Herod.

Our Lady asked the monks to associate the people to this miracle and a pilgrimage was organized. It lasted five days and brought together, in large encampments, Egyptian, Ethiopian, Maronite, Greek, Nestorian, Latin and even Muslim pilgrims. The faithful adopted the custom of throwing their turbans and scarves at the dome of the church during the apparitions, and sometimes the Virgin consented to touch one or the other. In addition, everyone could ask and see their departed relatives, next to Our Lady.

The apparitions at the monastery of Al-Maghti were well known in Ethiopia, thanks to the Book of Miracles of Mary. They are even mentioned in the Ethiopian Synaxarium, on the date of 21 Genbot / 21 Bachnas (May 29). According to this Book of Miracles, confirmed by the geographer Al-Maqrîzî (d. 1441), the monastery was destroyed in 1438 during Ramadan, by order of the Mamluk Sultan Barsbay al-Malik al-Ashraf Sayf ad-Dan.

Father René Laurentin (French theologian and expert in the field of Mariology, d. 2017)