The Holy Monastery of St George is located in the are of Old Cairo. It is the old area known as Babylonos of Egypt, which took its name after the settlement of the Babylonian captives which the Pharaoh Ramses I (1390 BC) brought to Egypt from his campaign in Asia. It is close to the pyramids, between ancient Memphis and Heliopolis. The Babylonians built a fortress there. The fortress, known as Qasr el Rum or Qasr el Samma (Palace of the Torches, either because of the worship of fire, or because of the enlightened points of understanding) has been renovated three times by the Roman Emperors Octavius, Traianus, and Arcadius, due to the geographical importance of the place. Following the decisive prevalence of Christianity in Egypt, when in the year 383 A.D. Theodosius the Great issued a decreed doing away with pagan temples by soldiers, in honour of the soldier St George, and Babylonia became a Diocese. Following the Arab occupation of the Land of the Nile (7th century A.D.) it is renamed Fustat (military camp, a variation on the byzantine word Fossato, from the Latin fossatum) and following the founding of Cairo it is called Misr al Atiqa or Misr al Gatimad. The Monastery of St George through the ages operated as a convent, hospital, poorhouse, old age home, school and cemetery, was prone to consecutive destructions and renovations, the last in 1904, when it suffered serious damage from a fire and was renovated by Patriach Fotios (1900-1925). The Church of St George is round, eight-columned, similar to the Basilica of St Vitale in Ravenna, surrounded by an ancient wall at a distance of half a square kilometer, the largest part of which has been destroyed. In 1998 Greece undertook the construction of a new wall to preserve its ancient parts, with two entrances, the central one towards the Hegumen’s residence and the other entrance towards the Greek cemetery, which witnesses to and preserves glorious memories of the Hellenes of Egypt. Provost: Archimandrite Damaskinos Al Rαzai Phone/Fax: 0020-223631.340, 0020-1211007154 More Photos