Baucalis

Baucalis, also called Boukolou,{{cite book|last1=Haas|first1=Christopher|title=Alexandria in Late Antiquity: Topography and Social Conflict |date=2006|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |location=Baltimore |page=269 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c2NdJo7uLZoC&dq=baucalis&pg=PA269|accessdate=2 January 2015|isbn=0-8018-8541-8}} and Baukalis, is a section in Alexandria, Egypt where St. Mark was reported to have been martyred, along with the historic location of his martyrium.{{citation|author=Judith McKenzie|title=The Architecture of Alexandria and Egypt C. 300 BC to Ad 700|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KFNCaZEZKYAC&pg=PA231|accessdate=2013-01-30|year=2007|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-11555-0|page=231}} It is also where Arius (Greek: Ἄρειος, AD 250 or 256–336) was a Christian presbyter and priest.{{citation|last=Haas|first=Christopher|date=September 1993|title=The Arians of Alexandria|journal=Vigiliae Christianae|publisher=Brill|volume=47|issue=3|pages=234–245|issn=0042-6032|jstor=1583805|doi=10.1163/157007293X00169}}

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Coptic Church tradition holds that the city of Alexandria was evangelized for the first time by St. Mark. The first Christians there built a church for Mark at Baucalis. According to tradition, St. Mark was attacked by a crowd of pagans on Easter Sunday 68 AD in the Church at Baucalis, dragged through the streets and martyred. His followers were able to save his body and place it in a tomb under the altar of the church.{{citation|author=Brian Moynahan|author-link=Brian Moynahan|title=The Faith: A History of Christianity|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=igfiWaLzptIC&pg=PA66|accessdate=2013-01-30|date=18 December 2007|publisher=Random House Digital, Inc.|isbn=978-0-307-42394-8|page=66}} The Acts of St. Mark report that the church of Baucalis was "built in the area beside the sea under the crags called 'Boukolou'." There is some indication that the church was built on the site of an earlier shrine to Serapis.{{citation|author=Marco Rizzi|title=Hadrian and the Christians|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BdQtshCmxZwC&pg=PA130|accessdate=2013-01-30|date=22 September 2010|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|isbn=978-3-11-022471-9|page=130}}

Coptic tradition also tells that his body was still at Baucalis as late as 311 AD, when Pope Peter of Alexandria was martyred at the same site.{{citation|author=Otto Friedrich August Meinardus|author-link=Otto Friedrich August Meinardus|title=Christian Egypt, ancient and modern|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wLnYAAAAMAAJ|accessdate=2013-01-30|year=1977|publisher=American University in Cairo Press|isbn=9789772014965}} According to the Martyrdom of St. Peter (Acta or Passio Sancti Petri), the tribunes who would later have him beheaded allowed him to first visit the tomb of St. Mark at "the place called Boukolou." He prayed to St. Mark for his intercession, that he might be martyred joyously. After exiting the tomb, the tribunes beheaded him in an area just south of Mark's martyrium.

Later, Patriarchs of Alexandria were elected at the Church of Baucalis, as the oldest church in the city.{{citation|last=Barnard|first=L. W.|date=Apr 1964|title=St. Mark and Alexandria|journal=The Harvard Theological Review|publisher=Cambridge University Press|volume=57|issue=2|pages=145–150|jstor=1508784|doi=10.1017/S0017816000005460}} The original church of Baucalis was abandoned around the fifth century, and its exact historic location is unknown. Some speculation centers on the area around the current location of the 1920s era College of St. Mark.{{citation|author=Birger Albert Pearson|title=Gnosticism and Christianity: In Roman and Coptic Egypt|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c8m0eAMQ34sC&pg=PA102|accessdate=2013-01-30|year=2004|publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-567-02610-1|pages=102–109}}

Arius, son of Ammonius, was a popular priest appointed presbyter for the district of Baucalis in 313. After his condemnation in 321, Arius withdrew to Palestine with the support of Eusebius of Caesarea.[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01718a.htm CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Arius] Retrieved 17 January 2013.