Vol.I - The Coptic Orthodox Church

234 Ancient Coptic Churches. [CH. iv.
and after thirty years he 'died in the Mu'allakah,'
i.e. in the episcopal or patriarchal residence attached
to it. There too died in 1102 A.D. the iniquitous
patriarch Michael ; who having given his solemn
bond in writing that he would, if elected, restore to
their bishops these two churches which Christodulus
had usurped, no sooner felt himself secure upon the
throne than he laughed in the faces of the bishops,
denied flatly
all knowledge of his promise, and
threatened to excommunicate any who dare pro-
duce one of the duly signed and sealed copies
of the document. This story, given in Renau-
dot, seems to show distinctly that Al Mu'allakah
was the episcopal church
Babylon
of the see of Masr or
: nowhere is a
mentioned.
bishop of Abu Sargah
The successor of Michael, named Macarius, after
the customary journey to Alexandria for installation
and visit to the monasteries of the western desert,
returned to Old Cairo to celebrate in Al Mu'allakah :
and the pre-eminence asserted or re-asserted by
Christodulus seems ever after to have been quietly
acknowledged. Certainly patriarchs were conse-
crated there all through the twelfth century. Early
in the thirteenth the patriarch Johannes died there,
but was buried outside : thither the dishonest and
unscrupulous David, called Cyril, the LXXV patriarch,
came in a grand procession with crosses and
gospels, tapers, thuribles, and music, preceded by
priests and deacons and followed by a great multitude
of Christians and Muslims: in 1251 A.D.
Athanasius was consecrated there : the church was
plundered about 1259, when a chalice of wonderful
workmanship was found buried under the altar, i.e.