A thousand years is a long time. As far as we can tell, the prayer meeting last night that I attended in the cave church of St Simon, which they said had 70,000 [update: official count was 71,000] by the time I was leaving, was by far the largest Christian gathering in Egypt in over a thousand years.
This photo is taken in the overflow area outside the cave church. Photo by Wolfgang.
Another interesting observation: Apart from our group of friends that attended, I only saw one other foreigner there, a girl who walks up and asks me if I am TallSkinnyKiwi. Which I was. Small world.
Photo of main sanctuary found here.