The Legend of the Voyage of Saint Mark to Alexandria: The Winged Lion, the Conversion of Anianus, and the Foundation of the Church of Egypt
The Evangelist of the Delta In the early ecclesiastical history of Egypt, against the monumental backdrop of the lighthouse of Alexandria and the library of the Ptolemies, a single mission is celebrated as the origin of the Coptic Church. Saint Mark the Evangelist , the disciple of Saint Peter and the writer of the second Gospel, was commissioned to carry the Christian faith to the great Mediterranean metropolis of Alexandria in the first century of the common era, establishing the patriarchal see that remains the oldest Christian institution of the African continent. The legend of Saint Mark's mission is the mystery of the intellectual synthesis . Alexandria was not a simple pagan city; it was the capital of the Hellenistic intellect, a place where the Jewish philosophy of Philo met the Neoplatonism of the academy and the ancient mysteries of Isis and Osiris. The arrival of Mark in this city represents the entry of the apostolic spirit into the crucible of the intellect , a p...