personage in Alexandria - Part 1

Many of important personages have passed by Alexandria , some were born in this land or lived here ,some of them just made their decision to spend the rest of their life in this great City.And here we share some of their achievements & unique touch they left on this city :

Alexander the great :

He was born on 356 B.C. He was born in Pella the ancient capital of Macedonia, he was the son of Philip II, king of Macedonia, His tutor was Aristotle, who trained him in literature and stimulated his interest in science, medicine and philosophy.

In the summer of 336 B.C. his father was assassinated and he ascended to the Macedainian throne,In 332 BC, Alexander of Macedonia, the Great, marched into Egypt , During his voyage to Zeus Ammon at the oasis of Siwa in the Libyan Desert, he stopped at a spot on opposite to the island of Pharos. ..he liked this spot and gave an order to the architect” Dinocrates of Rhodes”, to start founding his new city but he had no chance to see the town. He left before the first stone was laid, heading east to further victories and eventual death at Babylon “Iraq"…but Alexandria was named after the Macedonian general Alexander the Great…and he was buried in royal Soma(cemetery) in Alexandria(still his tomb is not found yet)

Cleopatra (69-30 BC), queen of Egypt (51-30 BC), celebrated for her love affairs with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. In 51 BC, on the death of her father, King Ptolemy XII Auletes, Cleopatra and her brother Ptolemy XIII succeeded jointly to the throne. In the third year of their reign Ptolemy drove Cleopatra into exile. Roman general Julius Caesar arrived in Alexandria, became Cleopatra's lover, and returned her to the throne, after which Cleopatra lived in Rome as Caesar's mistress. After Caesar's assassination in 44 BC, Cleopatra returned to Egypt. Roman general Mark Antony then fell in love with Cleopatra and moved to Egypt. Later Antony returned to Rome, where he married Octavia, a sister of Caesar's heir, Octavian, later Emperor Augustus. When Antony went to the East as commander of an expedition against the Parthians in 36 BC, he and Cleopatra reunited. Following Antony's victory over the Parthians, Antony and Cleopatra lived in Egypt until 32 BC, when Octavian declared war against them. Following the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, Cleopatra and Antony fled to Alexandria, where they both committed suicide,wrongly Some historians titled Cleopatra’s reign as “ last pharaoh period”,but Cleopatra was not Pharaoh,she was Ptolemaic Queen and had no kinship with ancient Egyptian…although she kept on wearing as a pharaoh queen.

St. Mark: the traditional author of the second Synoptic Gospel, is said to have been preaching in Alexandria in the mid-1st century AD.St. Mark was a young man who grew up in a wealthy Jewish family. and they lived in Jerusalem. At an early age, Mark came under the influence of Christianity, and his home was often used as a meeting place for the early Christians.

In the very earliest years of the Church, there were no Church buildings like we have today. Because of persecution, and various state laws, Christians were often not allowed to meet in public. So they couldn't build their own buildings until around the year 250 - over 200 years after the Church had started. And so, they would often meet in various homes out of necessity, and St. Mark's home became one of these.

St. Mark later went on to travel with the Apostle Peter. He also wrote the first of the four Gospels that we have in the New Testament - the Gospel According to St. Mark. he moved to the city of Alexandria in Egypt, and that he was actually the first teacher of Christianity in Egypt.

On April 25, in the year 68 A.D., Mark was taken by a mob of people and dragged through the rocky streets of Alexandria until he died. He suffered much, and died as a martyr. His body was eventually sent to what is now the famous St. Mark's Church in Venice, Italy.

El-Mursi Abu-El-Abbas ( Spanish Muslim scholar) :

He was originally from Murcia, Spain, which was then part of the Islamic Empire. He settled down in Alexandria ,His mosque is the largest mosque in the city and it is distinguished for its high minaret and four domes. The mosque was originally built In 1775 by his Algerian students,it was built over the tomb of the thirteenth century Andalusan saint Ahmed Abu al-Abbas al-Mursi ,then in 1943 the mosque has been re-designed and rebuilt(by an Italian architect Mario Rossi) by adding 4 domes and the towering (73 meter) minaret..., The interior is made up of eight monolithic granite columns and a colonnade of elongated arches, the Mosque illustrates the sophistication of Andalusian Islamic architecture.

Churchill :
Churcill used to stay in the most famous hotels in Alexandria” the Cecil Hote” which was built in 1920,where Winston Churchill and Smerset Maugham have stayed. Also one of its suites was permanently reserved for the British Secret Service.,Inside the Cecil is Monty's Bar, named after Field Marshal Montgomery, a resident of the hotel during the desert campaign against Rommel.
Churchill mentioned that Alexandria has the best climate that he really enjoyed than in any other place he visited in the whole world.

Queen Sophia( Queen of Spain) :
She studied in the English Girls' College (EGC) in Alexandria's Shatby district ... Queen Sophia is the Honorary President of the Old EGCians.