Polish artist Mario, sculptor of St. Simon the Tanner Monastery complex, climbs a ladder while working on a relief at the church in the Egyptian capital Cairo's eastern hillside Mokattam district. Mario spent more than two decades carving the rugged insides of the seven cave churches and chapels of the rock-hewn St. Simon Monastery and church complex atop Cairo's Mokattam hills, with designs inspired by biblical stories. It was all done to fulfil the wishes of the church's parish priest who met Mario in the early 1990s in Cairo. The Polish artist, who had arrived in Egypt earlier on an educational mission, was then looking for an opportunity to serve God at the monastery. AFP

In pictures – the beautiful cave church art in Cairo that took two decades to carve