Our Lady of Zeitoun

Original Book Title: Our Lady of Zeitoun
Author Name: Val Conlon
Publisher Name: DM Pub. Divine Mercy Publications – Ireland
Publication Year: ~2019
Book Language: English
ISBN: 9781872276939

On the cover of Our Lady of Zeitoun, author Val Conlon writes:
“Extraordinary apparitions in Zeitoun, Cairo, witnessed by millions of people of all faiths and even by those without one, Christians, Muslims, Jews, agnostics, and atheists alike. All saw Our Lady appear above the Church of the Virgin Mary in Zeitoun, Cairo. She appeared in the heart of the troubled Middle East, above a Coptic church built along the path once taken by the Holy Family during their flight into Egypt. Her apparitions were a divine call for the world to believe and to pray, a living expression of love from Mary and the Holy Family to all humankind.”
More than seven years after the Virgin’s first apparition in Zeitoun, The New York Times published a report on May 5, 1975, bearing witness to the events. It read:
“Christians and non-Christians testified that what they saw in Zeitoun changed their belief from thinking there might be a God to knowing that God exists. What an extraordinary gift.”
This statement alone reveals the deep and lasting spiritual impact the apparitions had on all who witnessed them.
The book recounts the story of the apparitions with specific dates, striking details, and compelling evidence of their supernatural nature. It is filled with remarkable photographs and first-hand testimonies from church officials, eyewitnesses, scientists, and people from a wide variety of faiths—or none at all. These accounts reveal how the apparitions inspired countless transformations, drawing people from doubt and uncertainty into renewed faith and healing of both soul and body.
The first apparition took place on the evening of April 2, 1968. A group of Muslim workers at the Public Transport Authority garage across the street saw what appeared to be a “luminous lady” standing atop the church’s central dome. One of them, Farouk Mohamed Atwa, fearing that the woman might attempt suicide, cried out, “Lady, don’t jump!” As some of his colleagues ran to alert the priest, the figure revealed herself as a radiant being clothed entirely in light. A woman in the gathered crowd shouted, “Our Lady Mary!” — “It’s Our Lady of Zeitoun!”
The apparitions continued until May 1971. Over time, their frequency lessened, from two or three times a week, to once a month during 1969, until the final appearances in May 1971.

Miraculous Healings

During many of the apparitions, flocks of glowing white doves appeared and circled the church before disappearing into the night sky. The following day, Farouk Mohamed Atwa, who had been scheduled to undergo surgery to amputate a gangrenous finger, discovered that his finger had healed completely. This was recorded as the first known miraculous healing at Zeitoun. Many more such miracles were documented in the years that followed.
Among the other topics explored in the book are: Egypt and the History of Christianity, What Muslims Believe About the Holiness of Mary, An Extraordinary Event, and The Continuing Apparitions, among others.