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Christians have gathered to pay their final respects to Pope Shenouda III as he sat on his thrown for the last time.
The church leader spent four decades in Egypt's Orthodox Church trying to soothe sectarian tensions between Christians and the majority Muslim nation.
However, there has been mounting friction between the two since Hosni Mubarak was overthrown last year. Shenouda, who died on Saturday aged 88, often called for harmony and regularly met Muslim leaders to ease tensions.
Christians, who comprise of about a tenth of Egypt's 80 million people, have long complained of discrimination and in the past year stepped up protests, which included calls for new rules that would make it as easy to build a church as a mosque.
Shenouda had served as the 117th Pope of Alexandria since November 1971, leading the Orthodox community who make up most of Egypt's Christians. His funeral will be held on Tuesday, according to Egyptian state media.
Thousands of Christians queued in Cairo's Abbasiya district overnight and on Sunday morning at the cathedral where Shenouda's body was initially laid in a coffin.
The body was later seated on a ceremonial throne wearing gold and red embroidered religious vestments, a golden mitre on his head and holding a gold-topped staff.
Shenouda was popular among many of Egypt's Christians even outside the Orthodox Church, as well as among many Muslims.
But some activists said he should have pushed the state harder to secure more rights for Christians.
He was hugely passionate about the North African country and was often heard saying: 'Egypt is not a nation we live in, rather it is a nation that lives in us.'
The burial is expected to take place at the Wadi el Natrun monastery in the desert northwest of Cairo, where the late pope had requested he be buried.
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