Hanging Church

Al-Mu'allaqa, "the suspended", is built across the gap between two towers of the Roman fortress of Babylon — its nave resting on the old gatehouse, with nothing beneath the floor but the passage the Romans walked through. A glass panel set into the floor lets you look straight down the drop, which is the moment most visitors remember.

You reach it up a flight of twenty-nine steps from the street, through a facade of twin bell towers. Inside, the church is unexpectedly light and unexpectedly wooden: a coffered ceiling built like an inverted ark, thirteen slender columns, and a marble pulpit resting on fifteen supports.

Look for

• The iconostasis of ebony inlaid with ivory in fine geometric panels, screening the sanctuary
• The icon collection — over a hundred, the oldest dating to around the 8th century
• The glass floor panel above the Roman gate
• The thirteen columns, read as Christ and the twelve apostles

A church has stood here since perhaps the 3rd or 4th century, making it one of the oldest Christian sites in Egypt, though the building has been rebuilt and repaired so many times that most of what stands is medieval — chiefly 10th and 11th century work, with later additions.

Building it on top of a Roman gate was a practical decision as much as a symbolic one. The fortress walls were the strongest structure in the settlement, and the gatehouse gave a raised, defensible platform in a district that flooded.

Seat of the patriarch

For a long stretch of the medieval period the Coptic Patriarch of Alexandria resided here rather than in Alexandria itself, which made this small suspended church the administrative heart of the Coptic Church. Several patriarchs were elected within these walls.

Part of a quarter

The Hanging Church sits inside Coptic Cairo, a compact walled district that also holds the Church of St Sergius — traditionally said to stand over a crypt where the Holy Family sheltered during the flight into Egypt — the Ben Ezra Synagogue, and the Coptic Museum. It is one of the few places anywhere that a church, a synagogue and a mosque stand within a few minutes' walk of one another, all still in use.