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CHURCH ARCHITECTURE IN EGYPT. Only church

buildings can be considered as a confessional type of structurelike
the cultic buildings of pagans, Jews, and Muslims. Churches are a
specifically Christian type of architecture. All other kinds of
buildingincluding funerary structureshave no confessional ties
and take the same form among Christians as among people of other
faiths in the same period.
Corresponding to the requirements of Christian worship, church
buildings have two fundamentally different areas: (1) the sanctuary,
with its side chambers and the altar as the central point and the place
of the actual ceremonial, placed in all extant monuments from Egypt
in the east; and (2) the nave, as a rule very spacious and generally
with several aisles, as the place in which the laity attend the
preparatory part of the liturgy as onlookers. Generally the sanctuary
consists of a central apse with side chambers disposed on either side.
In simple buildings there is instead of the apse a simple rectangular
cultic niche. In addition, more ample types of room like the triconch
are also found.
Whatever their outward form, these cultic niches are open to the
west, toward the nave, for almost their entire width. In ordinary
parish churches the altar stands in front of the opening. It is
surrounded in turn by a screen that projects slightly into the nave. In
monastery churches the altar is frequently set up in the cultic niche
itself, perhaps reflecting a primitive usage. The screen then lies in
the area of the front opening.
The nave or naos (Greek, temple), the area assigned to the laity,
is considerably larger than the sanctuary, and accordingly is usually
constructed with several aisles. Some of the large churches, like the
cathedral church of al-Ashmunayn and the great basilica of ABU
MINA, have a transept. The several aisles are separated by rows of
columns, or pillars connected by arcades; in rare cases, they are also
separated by architraves. Very often the pillars were walled up with
stones and bricks. West of the area for the laityat least in the early
buildingsthere is a narthex and in some cases also an atrium.
Early Christian Period
No church buildings from the fourth century A.D. have so far
been discovered, with the exception of a few not yet explored.
Hence from an archaeological point of view, Christian architecture
in Egypt begins with the fifth century. There must have been earlier
buildings, but they have perished. Presumably they were for the
most part only simple buildings of mud brick which in time were
replaced by new structures. Large monumental buildings were to be
found in the fourth century perhaps only in the capital, Alexandria.
The oldest churches so far discovered are a few small buildings
of the early fifth century from the region of the KELLIA on the
western edge of the Delta. These are modest houses of prayer
designed to meet the needs of monks vowed to the principle of
poverty. Thus they are not representative of the architecture of this
period. However, these early examples of Egyptian church building
do have a sanctuary with three sections. In buildings with a single
aisle the sanctuary is consequently wider than the naos. In all
churches of the Kellia the altar stands in the inner part of the cultic
niche, which here is rectangular.
Alongside these simple monastic churches there must have been
a few more advanced buildings, for even before the middle of the
fifth century some large buildings were erected at Ashmunayn, Faw
al-Qibli (PBOW), and Suhaj; these are inconceivable without
corresponding earlier buildings. They represent the highest
architectural achievement of their time, and have a fully developed
architectural design that was later only slightly altered.
Characteristic is the basilica construction of the naos with several
aisles, along with the western return aisle peculiar to early Christian
building methods in Egypt, and a narthex lying to the west of it.
From this at least one door leads into the naos; generally there are
three. An atrium is only rarely found and, in the buildings
mentioned, appears only in the cathedral church at al-Ashmunayn
(Hermopolis Magna). All the buildings have a sanctuary with
several chambers, the main chamber consisting of a cultic niche
developed as an apse. In the church of DAYR ANBA SHINUDAH
in Suhaj the cultic niche has the form of a triconch. In addition, the
churches mentionedapart perhaps from the monastery churches in
Faw al-Qibli, still not definitively investigatedeach had a gallery
usually reached by a flight of steps. The two superimposed churches
at Faw al-Qibli were certainly constructed with five aisles, which
elsewhere was the case only in the basilica of Armant and some
smaller buildings in Madinat Madi and Makhurah. The cathedral of
al-Ashmunayn, moreover, is furnished with a three-aisle transept,
the sides of which unusually end in a semicircle. This design should
not, however, be confused with a triconch. In the last quarter of the
fifth and the early sixth centuries a transept of this kind appears
again in the church of Hawwariyyah and in the great basilica of Abu
Mina, the largest church building in Egyptian territory, but here the
side wings have a straight termination.
While these large buildings of the fifth century have in the
sanctuary a relatively extensive and complicated groundplan,
perhaps resulting from the size of the space available, by the fifth
century there was in the smaller buildings a canonical group of three
chambers. As a rule, this group consists of a semicircular apse and
two rectangular side rooms, of which at least one could be directly
entered from the naos. Exceptions in which the side rooms are
missing occur so far only in the area of Maryut. In the buildings that
have a cultic niche developed as a triconch, the side chambers are
brought round the side conches in the shape of a gamma. In
addition, it was common, particularly in Upper Egypt and evidently
as early as the late fifth century, to place before the cultic niche an
additional triumphal arch supported by two free-standing columns
(see DANDARAH). With the exception of the churches in the great
laura of the Kellia, the altar now always stands in front of the cultic
niche and is surrounded by a low screen. In the area of the naos, the
churches of the fifth century almost always have numerous niches,
which are symmetrically distributed on the walls, with or without a
decorative framework, and provide the reason for the often
enormous strength of the walls in most Egyptian churches. This
custom holds for Upper and Lower Egypt, irrespective of whether
the buildings are of brick or stone. It is only in the buildings of the
Maryut region, which were evidently more strongly influenced by
the general architecture of the empire, that these wall niches are not
found.
In the sixth century, the form of the basilica remained roughly
the same. The buildings, however, became more uniform, and no
further large buildings were erected. Instead, especially in the
coastal region, there are some churches with a centralized shape,
which bear a close resemblance to the four-conch buildings of Syria
and Asia Minor, and were probably influenced by these
(Grossmann, 1977, pp. 35ff.). So far, two examples have become
known from the region of Abu Mina. In Upper Egypt in the same
period or a little later there appear a few four-pillar churches with an
ambulatory (Grossmann, 1979, pp. 86ff.) that strikingly extended
their influence to the architecture of Nubia in particular and there
found numerous successors (see NUBIAN CHRISTIAN
ARCHITECTURE).

Early Middle Ages

The early Middle Ages in Egypt began roughly with the Arab
conquest of the country (A.D. 639-641) (see ARAB CONQUEST
OF EGYPT). During this period church building showed only a
continuation of the normal basilica structure, which down to the
Fatimid period belonged to the type of church most frequently built,
although dimensions became smaller. With the passing of late
antiquity, there was an increasing tendency to enhance the division
between the sacral area and that of the laity, probably because of an
intensified sacralization of the liturgical ceremony. In front of the
sanctuary a special room (khurus) reserved for the clergy was
separated from the naos, and from about the eighth century, it was
divided from the rest of the nave by a high partition wall. In the
middle of the wall was one wide opening that could be closed by a
curtain. The room thus formed contained the altar, where all
ceremony took place out of the sight of the laity. In older churches
not yet equipped with a khurus of this kind, it was subsequently built
in, although it required strange architectural compromises. By its
very nature a wide room, the khurus opened in the middle of its east
wall into the apse, usually covered over by a semicupola. If the side
wings were given a similar form of vaulting, they could be
combined with the apse into the form of a triconch, which was
frequently the case. One of the earliest examples is the al-Adhra
Church of DAYR AL-SURYAN in the Wadi al-Natrun, which dates
from perhaps as early as the eighth century.

The High Middle Ages (Fatimid Period)

The period of the high Middle Ages, roughly contemporary with
the Fatimid rule, must rank as the golden age of church building in
Egypt. It was in this period that the most important buildings were
constructed. In general, the arrangement of the sanctuary in these
buildings corresponds to that of the preceding period, but the
disposition of the rooms became tighter and more harmonious. All
the chambersincluding the cultic nichewere now rectangular.
Moreover, since in this period all new buildings were provided with
a khurus from the outset, there was no need for the kind of
improvisation frequently found in older buildings.
In the area of the nave, however, the development of church
building took a fundamentally new direction. As in Byzantine and
Islamic architecture, there was a change in Egypt from the wooden
roof to vaulting. It was regarded as more economical and less
flammable. That the construction of vaults was possible only in the
case of smaller buildings was of no consequence, since people had
already grown accustomed to smaller church buildings in the
preceding period. In addition, the galleries were largely abandoned
in this period.
The adoption of vaulting applied in the first place to the area of
the nave. Here, strangely, Lower and Upper Egypt followed
different paths. Lower Egypt preferred barrel-vaulting. It had the
advantage that the directional thrust proper to the basilica remained
unaffected. Upper Egypt preferred domes. Since, however, as in
Lower Egypt, the ground plan of the basilica was at first retained,
this ledin connection with the roofing of the central aisleto the
use of two domed areas linked for internal communication by a great
arch. Further arched entries opened into the side aisles, which were
themselves constructed as barrel-vaulted areas running along the
domed central areas on either side. In this way a new type of
building came into beingthe elongated church with a domed main
aisle. Examples include, among others, the monastery churches of
the DAYR ANBA HADRA at Aswan, Dayr al-Shuhada (Isna), and
DAYR MAR BUQTUR (Qamulah). A building in Cairo is found in
the parekklesia of the Menas church, while other examples can be
seen even in Nubia (Tamit, Faras).
In the following period the elongated, domed church went
through a singular development presumably conditioned by the
structural laws of domed vaulting. The two domed areas, at first
regarded as of equal status, eventually became rivals, and in the
course of further development this led to a stunting of the rearmost
area. In the final phase, toward the end of the twelfth century, it
became a small transversally oriented side room, or it entirely
disappeared, with the result that this building became a central
structure with a single dome.
Alongside these structures, which still stand in clear relation to
the preceding basilica form, a second type of building was
developed in the early Fatimid period, which was close to the Greek
type of octagon-domed churches, and whose origin is probably also
to be traced to Byzantine influence. This was a central building
roofed over by a dome of unusually wide span (by comparison with
other buildings of the period), the dome being carried by eight
supports partly set into the side walls. This type is found in its
present form in the church of the DAYR AL-SHAYKHAH at
Aswan. Here it was developed as a double belt building with an
ambulatory running around three sides. The ambulatory was
matched by two chambers set at the sides of the sanctuary, which
gave the sanctuary the deceptive appearance of a fivefold
arrangement. The two outer chambers had nothing to do with the
internal arrangement of the sanctuary. There are examples of single-
belt, octagon-domed churches at Dayr al-Qusayr (Turah) and Kulb
in Nubia.
Late Middle Ages and Modern Period
The last phase of Egyptian church building is represented by a
simple four-pillar church, which at a cautious estimate can be
identified from about the Mamluk period. Its spatial arrangement
consists of nine bays of approximately the same size, usually roofed
with cupolas, of which the central dome is emphasized by its richer
development and greater height. This type is the result of a further
development from the elongated, domed church, but it is also based
upon influences from the Byzantine world. Apart from the uniform
inner arrangement of the church, which is probably to be traced to
Islamic influence, it shows many similarities to the Byzantine cross-
in-square churches.
The program of the chambers, which in the older examples still
employ a khurus (see DAYR AL-SHAHID TADRUS AL-
MUHARIB), rests unmistakably on Egyptian tradition. In further
development, the khurus gradually fell out of use, while the altar
was moved back into the cultic niche, where it had already stood at
one time in some monastery churches of the early period. The
reason for this development was undoubtedly the frequency of
masses from the Mamluk period on. Since according to the Coptic
rite, it is forbidden to celebrate the mass at the same altar more than
once in a day (Nomocanon of Michael of Damietta), there was need
for a larger number of altar places, the reason for changing the side
chambers of the sanctuary into additional smaller sanctuaries. With
such an alteration of the traditional arrangement of the sanctuary,
any understanding of the significance of the khurus was also lost.
The decline in the number of the faithful from the Mamluk period
had the same effect. The sometimes greatly shriveled congregations
felt the traditional distribution of the church building unnecessarily
extravagant. So it was that toward the end of the Mamluk period the
khurus was eliminated. In place of the former dividing wall of the
khurus now appears the hijab (iconostasis), to be set up at the
entrance to the altar chamber, a form of structure that persists today.
[See also: Architectural Elements of Churches.]
 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bourguet, P. du. The Art of the Copts, trans. Caryll Hay Shaw. New
York, 1971.
Clarke, S. Christian Antiquities in the Nile Valley. Oxford, 1912.
Grossmann, P. "Abu Mena Ailik vorlufige Bericht Kampagnen
1975 and 1976." Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archologischen
Instituts Abteilung Kairo 33 (1977): 35-45.
______. "Zur christlichen Bankunst in gypten." Enchoria 9
(1978):135-146.
______. Elephantine II. Mainz, 1979.
______. Mittelalterliche Langhauskuppelkirchen und verwandte
Typen in Obergypten. Glckstadt, 1982.
______. "Neue Frhchristliche Funde aus gypten." Actes du X1e
congrs international darchologie chrtienne, Lyon 21-28
septembre 1986. Vol. 2, pp. 1843-1908. Paris, 1989.
Monneret de Villard, U. Deyr el-Muharraqah. Milan, 1928.
______. "Le basilica cristiano in Egitto." In Atti del IV congresso
internazionale di archeologia cristiana Citt di Vaticano (1938),
Vol. 1, pp. 291ff. Rome, 1940.
Walters, C. C. Monastic Archeology in Egypt. Warminster, 1974.

PETER GROSSMANN