Our Lady of Zeitoun, also called El-Zeitoun, Zeitun, or sometimes Our Lady of Light, was a large number of Marian apparitions that were said to have happened in the Zeitoun district of Cairo, Egypt. These events began on April 2, 1968, and lasted for about three years.
Apparition
The first appearance of the Virgin Mary in Zeitoun was recorded on the evening of April 2, 1968. Two Muslim bus mechanics saw a woman dressed in white on the roof of Saint Mary's Coptic Church. One believed she was a nun trying to jump from the roof and called the police. A crowd gathered when the mechanics shouted "don't jump!" The police tried to stop the crowd, saying the sight was a reflection from street lights. However, a church custodian suggested the figure might be the Virgin Mary, which excited the crowd. The event ended after a few minutes.
One week later, on April 9, the same appearance happened again, lasting only a few minutes. Over the next several years, these appearances occurred more often, sometimes two or three times a week, until 1971. According to Coptic tradition, Zeitoun is near a place where the Holy Family stayed during their journey to Egypt.
Pope Kyrillos VI, the leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, formed a committee of priests and bishops to study the event. Bishop Gregorios, who oversaw studies in Coptic culture and scientific research, led the investigation. On May 4, Pope Kyrillos VI released a statement confirming the appearances. Soon after, Egypt's Ministry of Tourism also validated the sightings and began producing pamphlets about them.
Because the apparition occurred above a Coptic church, the Vatican allowed the Coptic authorities to handle the investigation.
The apparition was also reportedly seen by President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Photographers from newspapers and Egyptian television took pictures of the event. Police investigations found no clear explanation for the sightings. No devices within fifteen miles of the church could project the image, and many independent photographers captured images of the apparition. With no other explanation and approval from religious and political leaders, the Egyptian government accepted the sightings as true.
People also claimed to experience spiritual changes, conversions, and reports of healings, including recovery from blindness, paralysis, cancer, and other serious illnesses, after seeing the apparition.
Skeptical response
Estimates of how many people saw the event differ a lot. Many people are said to have gone to the Church soon after the first reports of the phenomenon. Christian writer Francis Johnston claimed millions of people saw the apparitions. However, original sources used by Johnston suggest that no more than 250,000 people were at the Church in one night. Estimating crowd sizes in the dark was difficult, so the actual number could have been much higher or lower.
The only non-religious, English-language account of the event was written by Cynthia Nelson, an anthropology professor at the American University in Cairo. She visited the Church site several times over five months, including on 15 April 1968, another week later in April, and on 1 June 1968. Although reports said the Virgin Mary appeared regularly, Nelson did not see anything clearly resembling her. Instead, she saw only occasional flashes of light, which she thought were headlights, and later a glow of unclear shape through palm trees. She admitted the source of the light was unknown because the streetlights near the Church had been disconnected for several days. When faint light reflections appeared, crowds cheered and gasped, with Nelson stating that what people saw was more connected to their thoughts, feelings, and ideas than to their vision.
Nelson also noted that incense was sold at the marketplace near the Church as a way to gain blessings, called baraka. She reported that Muslims were also excited, saying the Virgin was similar to them as Muslims. In 1972, the Coptic Patriarch Pope Shenouda III was quoted by Nelson as saying: "Our revolution banned monopolies, so we will not claim the Virgin as our own," meaning the event would not cause conflicts between Copts and Muslims.
Joe Nickel, a paranormal investigator, highlighted how crowd psychology influenced the event. Once news spread, people’s expectations made large groups more likely to believe something extraordinary would happen. Others argued the event was interpreted as the Virgin Mary because of the religious beliefs of those present, and the lights did not speak or communicate directly. They suggested that people saw what they hoped to see, especially in a poor Egyptian town.
Many photos of the event exist, but some are unclear or inconsistent. Most are blurry or of low quality, though some seem to show the Virgin Mary. Some photos are either illustrations added to less detailed images or completely drawn, depending on the source. The origin of the most popular photo is unclear, and skeptics have pointed out problems, such as bright sunlight on people’s heads while the sky appears dark, or the Virgin looking see-through in some photos, even though others and witnesses described her as solid and very bright. Nelson noted that many photos of the apparition were sold in the marketplace, which might have encouraged fake images. Some people also question why no videos or 16mm film recordings were made during the three years the event occurred.
Scholarly analysis
Donald Westbrook writes that the events at Zeitoun have not been studied much by scholars. Valeria Céspedes Musso’s 2019 book is the first to focus on the apparition. Musso examined the sightings in their cultural context. The events happened during a difficult time in Egypt’s history and reflected a belief that Egypt’s loss in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war was due to moving away from faith and relying instead on human-made ideas. Robert Bartholomew and Erich Goode describe the Zeitoun apparitions as an example of mass hysteria. They suggest that people who saw the lights were more likely to believe they were connected to the Virgin Mary because of their religious background and social expectations. Michael P. Carroll explains that the lights, whose source was unclear, were seen as the Virgin Mary because of stress in Egyptian society and the connection between the Virgin Mary and the Zeitoun area. Carroll notes that Muslims seeing the Virgin Mary is not unusual, as Mary is respected in Islam.
John S. Derr and Michael A. Persinger proposed that tectonic strain might explain the lights. Their theory suggests that earthquakes can cause strange lights to appear. Zeitoun had tectonic activity before the events of 1968–1971, so the lights may have resulted from this seismic activity. Derr and Persinger, who worked for the US Geological Survey, presented evidence from earthquakes in Colorado between 1962 and 1967 that caused similar lights. The lights might only be visible at night, as they could not be seen during the day. However, their theory does not yet explain how tectonic events could create these lights.
Travis Dumsday argues that traditional explanations for the Zeitoun apparitions are not convincing. Biblical scholar Dale Allison also finds the events unexplainable, noting that no natural light phenomenon closely matches the apparition and that there is no evidence of a hoax, as authorities cut off power during the events.
Golden Jubilee
On May 12, 2018, the Coptic Church celebrated the 50th anniversary of the event. Many priests and Christians from across Egypt attended the celebration. Other celebrations of the event took place from May 10 to May 13.