The Church of Barbara, located in Egypt, was founded in the late fourth and early fifth centuries AD. (The Church of Saint Barbara in Haret al-Rum in the Babylon region contains the body of that saint. It is a beautiful and ancient church, with special sanctity, respect and appreciation. The altar was found behind the dike, and to the right of the altar is a wall. It is 4 feet high and contains a box containing the body of Saint Barbara, where visitors were allowed to touch her body. It was also managed by the Christians of the Belt, then the Greek monks, and in the Middle Ages) and it was dedicated after a nun called Barbara.
History
The Church of Saint Barbara is located north of the Coptic Museum and east of the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus (Abu Sarja) on the eastern side of Babylon Fortress. The church was originally dedicated to Abu Kir and John (or Saints Abu Kir and John [English]). When Saint Barbara's relics were brought to the site, a place was built for them. So today there are two separate churches built on this site.
Athanasius, a wealthy writer and secretary of Abd al-Aziz ibn Marwan (ruler of Egypt between 685 and 705 AD), built the church. A door was found during one of the church's many restorations that could date back to the 4th century. Between 1072 and 1073 the church was completely restored to house the relics of Saint Barbara, and these remains remain to this day. The church was damaged by a fire during the 12th century. The church was recently extensively renovated between 1910 and 1922.
Saint Barbara
Barbara was a very beautiful girl. She was born in one of the cities of Asia Minor in the early third century AD to a wealthy pagan father named Dioscorus. She received her education from the Egyptian theologian Origen, and then converted to the Christian religion. She refused marriage to devote her life to serving the religion she embraced, and was martyred during the reign of the Roman Emperor Maximian. At the hands of her pagan father, and the legend tells that the father was struck by lightning and instantly turned to ashes (there is no clear evidence of the existence of this saint, but her doctrine became strong in the ninth century AD). The church was destroyed in its subsequent eras, like other churches, and it was rebuilt by the Coptic minister John. Ibn Al-Abah in the year 1072 AD during the reign of Caliph Al-Mustansir Billah.
Description of the church
The facades of this church were built of both stone and brick. It has a high, rectangular building, 26 meters long, 14.5 meters wide, and approximately 15 meters high. Its ancient, Orthodox-style architecture consisted of a courtyard, two wings topped with a balcony for women, and three temples. However, this plan underwent several later modifications that led to the addition of two connected arms in the shape and area of this plan so that the church building completed the shape of the cross. Part of the northern wing, along with the entire hallway, was surrounded by a wall so that it could be used as a passage to the church and to the living rooms, and to transform the hallway into a view similar in width to the width of the courtyard.
The interior architecture of this church, which is low above the street, begins with a vestibule following the main entrance, which leads to a courtyard covered with a wooden truss roof, the floor of which is paved with stone tiles, and on the southern side there is a basin (font) for washing the feet on Maundy Thursday. On the northern side is a marble pulpit (umbel). On either side of this courtyard are two wings, one north and the other south, each covered by a flat wooden roof. The floors of these two wings were covered with stone tiles, and they are separated from the courtyard by ten marble columns with cylindrical bodies and Corinthian capitals, arranged in two rows and connected to each other by colored wooden frames.
The church structures are located on the eastern side and are covered by high semi-domes. It consists of a central main structure dedicated in the name of Saint Barbara. It is preceded by a veil made of Indian walnut wood, decorated with star plates, which are considered one of the verses of decorative art inlaid with mother-of-pearl and ivory. In the middle of it is a modern marble altar, surmounted by a wooden canopy resting on four marble columns. Its eastern wall is topped by a mihrab with seven. Bottom sides gather at the ceiling in a semicircle.
This main structure is surrounded by two side structures, each covered by a semi-dome roof, the southern one being square in shape with a floor of stone tiles. In the northern wall is a small closet, in addition to a door that leads to a hall that includes a modern hall in the name of Saint Barbara, and the other in the northern wall has a door that leads to the nave of a small church dedicated in the name of Saints Abakir and John, which contains three small temples that include two modern altars.
As for the balcony or women’s section, it is open, and the inner wall with the corridors connected to it represents a later addition to this balcony. There were original structures around this balcony, of which only one structure remains at its northern end, called the Saint George Temple. Inside it is a wonderful icon stand made of cedar wood, decorated with shapes of animals and birds, in addition to the overlapping and intertwined plant branches known as arabesques.