Basilica of Our Lady of Heliopolis
The Byzantine-style basilica at the heart of Heliopolis, where the district's founder Baron Empain is buried.
The church of the new city
The Basilica of Our Lady of Heliopolis — Basilique Notre-Dame d'Héliopolis — is the Roman Catholic church at the centre of Heliopolis, the garden city founded north-east of Cairo by the Belgian industrialist Baron Édouard Empain in the early twentieth century. Like Empain's own palace, it was designed by the French architect Alexandre Marcel, and it was built in the years just before the First World War as the spiritual centre of the new town, close to the arcaded commercial streets of the Korba district. It serves today as the co-cathedral of the Latin Catholic Apostolic Vicariate of Alexandria.
Architecture
The basilica is built in a neo-Byzantine style inspired by the great domed churches of Constantinople, with Hagia Sophia as an evident model: a central dome over a centralised plan, half-domes and smaller cupolas, arched windows and a richly decorated interior with marble, mosaics and painted decoration. Its silhouette, rising above a landscaped square, remains one of the landmarks of Heliopolis, framed by the district's arcaded buildings.
The baron's tomb
Baron Empain died in Belgium in 1929 and, according to his wishes, his body was brought back to Heliopolis and buried in the crypt of the basilica he had commissioned, at the heart of the city he had created. The church remains an active parish serving Cairo's Catholic community, with services in several languages.
Exhibo editorial
Heliopolis was designed as a complete small world — a palace, a hotel, a racecourse, a tram line, arcades for shopping — and this basilica was its soul. It rises over a leafy square like a small Hagia Sophia, domes stacked on domes, a Byzantine dream in the middle of a Cairo suburb.
Go inside if a service isn't on, sit for a moment under the dome, and remember that the man who imagined all of this — the arcades outside, the palace down the road, the whole neighbourhood — chose to be buried here, beneath your feet. Then walk out into Korba for a coffee under the arcades he built.
Gallery
How to find it
The basilica stands on Al-Ahram Street in the Korba district of Heliopolis, at the centre of a landscaped square surrounded by arcaded buildings. Taxis and ride-hailing drivers know it as al-Bazilika. The entrance faces the square; the Baron Empain Palace is a short drive to the east along Al-Orouba Street.
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