The Coptic Church is the indigenous form of Christianity in Egypt. When Islam arrived in Egypt in the early 7th century AD it took root within a Christian society. Over centuries a majority of the population converted to the faith of Islam, but the Christian faith always remained present. Successive rulers in Egypt expressesd power through the vocabulary of Islamic architecture, but limitations on Christian construction meant that churches and monasteries were built on land no one cared about. This visual essay explores the freedom of spiritual expression that has grown up in such marginal spaces, whether the empty spaces of the desert or the waste spaces of a sprawling urban metropolis.