Stone of Jesus footprint “Bikha Isous”

In a sermon written by Saint Zacharias, Bishop of Sakha in the eighth century, about the coming of Christ to Egypt, he narrated that the Holy Family went to Al-Burullus in a village called the Fig Tree, but the village did not accept them. So they went to another place called (Al-Mutla’), where a man gave them their needs, then they went to another place, which is Sakha currently. They became thirsty but they could not find water, so the Lord Jesus Christ put his foot on a stone, and the footprint of his foot was imprinted and pure water sprang from it. The believers began to put oil on the stone in the place of the foot and take blessing from it until the stone was hidden underground due to adverse conditions.

The length of the stone is about 80 centimeters and its thickness is 15 centimeters, and the place was named “Pikha Isos”, and “Pikha” means foot, and “Isos” means Jesus Christ, meaning the foot of Jesus Christ. In this place, a monastery was established full of monks and it continued until the twelfth century AD until the monastery was exposed to a wave of violence and persecution from extremists in Egypt, which prompted monks to save the stone from vandalism, so they marked the stone with a sign and hid it by burying it in the yard of the monastery. They fled and started writing in manuscripts about the story of hiding the stone and escaping.

In the month of April of the year 1948 AD, while sewage workers were digging near the Church of the Virgin Mary, they found a stone with a child’s footprint on it. It is believed that it is the footprint of the Child Jesus. The stone is now displayed in a glass box for visitors to touch and get blessing from it. On the 24th of Bashans, the Coptic priests carry the stone in a festive church procession, and they walk around the church with it.