The Heavenly Church

At the Heavenly Church, Gdariat worked across the whole interior, in mosaic and stained glass, to tell the life of Christ as one continuous story. Beneath the dome, the four pendentives carry the Four Evangelists in gold-ground mosaic: Mark with the lion, Luke with the ox, Matthew with the angel and John with the eagle. Each is set among clouds and framed by archangels. Around the nave, a cycle of stained glass windows follows Christ’s journey from the Annunciation and the Nativity, through His Baptism, His teaching in the Temple and His miracles at Cana, Jericho and Capernaum, to Palm Sunday and the Transfiguration. Every window is framed in a border of flowing scrolls and Coptic crosses. The journey ends in the sanctuary, where gold mosaic apses rise within carved wooden arches to show the Resurrection, Christ’s appearance to Mary Magdalene and the Ascension, with the Virgin and the Apostles gathered below. Every piece was designed and handcrafted in our Cairo atelier and signed by the hand of Nagui Riad, giving the church a single visual Gospel that the eye can read from window to dome to altar.