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Saint Catherine's Monastery ( , ), officially the Sacred Autonomous Royal Monastery of Saint Catherine of the Holy and God-Trodden Mount Sinai, is a Christian monastery located in the
Sinai Peninsula The Sinai Peninsula, or simply Sinai ( ; ; ; ), is a peninsula in Egypt, and the only part of the country located in Asia. It is between the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Red Sea to the south, and is a land bridge between Asia and Afri ...
of
Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
. Located at the foot of Mount Sinai, it was built between 548 and 565, and is the world's oldest continuously-inhabited Christian monastery. The monastery was built by order of the
Byzantine emperor The foundation of Constantinople in 330 AD marks the conventional start of the Eastern Roman Empire, which Fall of Constantinople, fell to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD. Only the emperors who were recognized as legitimate rulers and exercised s ...
Justinian I Justinian I (, ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was Roman emperor from 527 to 565. His reign was marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renovatio imperii'', or "restoration of the Empire". This ambition was ...
, enclosing what is claimed to be the
burning bush The burning bush (or the unburnt bush) refers to an event recorded in the Jewish Torah (as also in the biblical Old Testament and Islamic scripture). It is described in the third chapter of the Book of Exodus as having occurred on Mount Horeb ...
seen by Moses. Centuries later, the purported body of
Catherine of Alexandria Catherine of Alexandria, also spelled Katherine, was, according to tradition, a Christian saint and Virginity, virgin, who was martyred in the early 4th century at the hands of the emperor Maxentius. According to her hagiography, she was both a ...
, said to have been found in the area, was taken to the monastery; Catherine's
relic In religion, a relic is an object or article of religious significance from the past. It usually consists of the physical remains or personal effects of a saint or other person preserved for the purpose of veneration as a tangible memorial. Reli ...
s turned it into an important Christian pilgrimage, and the monastery was eventually renamed after the saint. Controlled by the autonomous Church of Sinai, which is part of the wider
Greek Orthodox Church Greek Orthodox Church (, , ) is a term that can refer to any one of three classes of Christian Churches, each associated in some way with Christianity in Greece, Greek Christianity, Antiochian Greek Christians, Levantine Arabic-speaking Christian ...
, the monastery became a
World Heritage Site World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...
in 2002 for its unique importance to the three major
Abrahamic religions The term Abrahamic religions is used to group together monotheistic religions revering the Biblical figure Abraham, namely Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The religions share doctrinal, historical, and geographic overlap that contrasts them wit ...
:
Judaism Judaism () is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic, Monotheism, monotheistic, ethnic religion that comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Jews, Jewish people. Religious Jews regard Judaism as their means of o ...
,
Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...
, and
Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...
. The monastery library holds unique and rare works, such as the Codex Sinaiticus and the Syriac Sinaiticus, as well as a collection of early Christian icons, including the earliest known depiction of Christ Pantocrator. Saint Catherine's has as its backdrop the three mountains it lies near: Willow Peak (possibly the biblical Mount Horeb, peak c. west); Jebel Arrenziyeb, peak c.1km south; and Mount Sinai (locally, , by tradition identified with the biblical Mount Sinai; peak south).


Christian traditions

The monastery was built around the location of what is traditionally considered to be the place of the
burning bush The burning bush (or the unburnt bush) refers to an event recorded in the Jewish Torah (as also in the biblical Old Testament and Islamic scripture). It is described in the third chapter of the Book of Exodus as having occurred on Mount Horeb ...
seen by the Hebrew prophet Moses. Saint Catherine's monastery also encloses the "Well of Moses", where Moses is said to have met his future wife,
Zipporah Zipporah is mentioned in the Book of Exodus as the wife of Moses, and the daughter of Jethro (biblical figure), Jethro, the priest and prince of Midian. She is the mother of Moses' two sons: Eliezer and Gershom. In the Book of Chronicles, two of ...
. The well is still today one of the monastery's main sources of water. The site is considered sacred by the three major
Abrahamic religions The term Abrahamic religions is used to group together monotheistic religions revering the Biblical figure Abraham, namely Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The religions share doctrinal, historical, and geographic overlap that contrasts them wit ...
:
Judaism Judaism () is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic, Monotheism, monotheistic, ethnic religion that comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Jews, Jewish people. Religious Jews regard Judaism as their means of o ...
,
Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...
, and
Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...
. Centuries after its foundation, the body of Saint Catherine of Alexandria was said to be found in a cave in the area. The relics of Saint Catherine, kept to this day inside the monastery, have made it a favourite site of pilgrimage. The patronal feast of the monastery is the
Feast of the Transfiguration The Feast of the Transfiguration is celebrated by various Christian communities in honor of the transfiguration of Jesus. The origins of the feast are less than certain and may have derived from the dedication of three basilicas on Mount Tabor.' ...
. File:Saint Catherine Sinai.jpg, Saint Catherine's Monastery with Willow Peak (traditionally considered Mount Horeb) in the background File:Burning Bush, St Catherine's Monastery.jpg, The monastery's centuries-old bramble is considered to be the biblical
burning bush The burning bush (or the unburnt bush) refers to an event recorded in the Jewish Torah (as also in the biblical Old Testament and Islamic scripture). It is described in the third chapter of the Book of Exodus as having occurred on Mount Horeb ...
. File:Moses-well-saint-catherine-church.jpg, "Well of Moses", where Moses is said to have met his future wife,
Zipporah Zipporah is mentioned in the Book of Exodus as the wife of Moses, and the daughter of Jethro (biblical figure), Jethro, the priest and prince of Midian. She is the mother of Moses' two sons: Eliezer and Gershom. In the Book of Chronicles, two of ...
File:Ossuary Sinai.jpg, Skeleton of the monk Stephanos, in his robe, in front of the ossuary


History

The oldest record of monastic life at Mount Sinai comes from the ''Itinerarium Egeriae'', a travel journal written in
Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
by a female Christian pilgrim from the Atlantic coast of Galicia or Roman Gaul named Egeria about 381/2–386. The monastery was built by order of the
Byzantine emperor The foundation of Constantinople in 330 AD marks the conventional start of the Eastern Roman Empire, which Fall of Constantinople, fell to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD. Only the emperors who were recognized as legitimate rulers and exercised s ...
Justinian I Justinian I (, ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was Roman emperor from 527 to 565. His reign was marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renovatio imperii'', or "restoration of the Empire". This ambition was ...
(reigned 527–565), enclosing the Chapel of the Burning Bush (also known as "Saint Helen's Chapel") ordered to be built by Empress Consort Helena, mother of Constantine I, at the site where Moses is supposed to have seen the
burning bush The burning bush (or the unburnt bush) refers to an event recorded in the Jewish Torah (as also in the biblical Old Testament and Islamic scripture). It is described in the third chapter of the Book of Exodus as having occurred on Mount Horeb ...
. The bush on the grounds is said to be the one seen by Moses. Structurally the monastery's king post truss is the oldest known surviving roof
truss A truss is an assembly of ''members'' such as Beam (structure), beams, connected by ''nodes'', that creates a rigid structure. In engineering, a truss is a structure that "consists of two-force members only, where the members are organized so ...
in the world. From the time of the
First Crusade The First Crusade (1096–1099) was the first of a series of religious wars, or Crusades, initiated, supported and at times directed by the Latin Church in the Middle Ages. The objective was the recovery of the Holy Land from Muslim conquest ...
, the presence of Crusaders in the Sinai until 1270 spurred the interest of European Christians. It increased the number of intrepid pilgrims who visited the monastery. Its dependencies in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Crete, Cyprus and Constantinople supported the monastery. Throughout the Middle Ages, the monastery had a multiethnic profile, with monks of Arab, Greek, Syrian, Slavonic and Georgian origin. However, in the Ottoman period, the monastic community became almost exclusively Greek Orthodox, possibly due to the decline and depopulation of Transjordanian Christian towns. From the 1480s onwards,
Wallachia Wallachia or Walachia (; ; : , : ) is a historical and geographical region of modern-day Romania. It is situated north of the Lower Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians. Wallachia was traditionally divided into two sections, Munteni ...
n princes began sending alms to the monastery. A
mosque A mosque ( ), also called a masjid ( ), is a place of worship for Muslims. The term usually refers to a covered building, but can be any place where Salah, Islamic prayers are performed; such as an outdoor courtyard. Originally, mosques were si ...
was created by converting an existing chapel during the Fatimid Caliphate (909–1171), which was in regular use until the era of the Mamluk Sultanate in the 13th century and is still in use today on special occasions. During the
Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...
, the mosque was in desolate condition; it was restored in the early 20th century. During the seventh century, the isolated Christian anchorites of the Sinai were eliminated: only the fortified monastery remained. The monastery is surrounded by the massive fortifications that have preserved it. Until the twentieth century, access was through a door high in the outer walls. The monastery, along with several dependencies in the area, constitutes the entire Church of Sinai, which is headed by an
archbishop In Christian denominations, an archbishop is a bishop of higher rank or office. In most cases, such as the Catholic Church, there are many archbishops who either have jurisdiction over an ecclesiastical province in addition to their own archdi ...
, who is also the
abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the head of an independent monastery for men in various Western Christian traditions. The name is derived from ''abba'', the Aramaic form of the Hebrew ''ab'', and means "father". The female equivale ...
of the monastery. The exact administrative status of the church within the
Eastern Orthodox Church The Eastern Orthodox Church, officially the Orthodox Catholic Church, and also called the Greek Orthodox Church or simply the Orthodox Church, is List of Christian denominations by number of members, one of the three major doctrinal and ...
is ambiguous: by some, including the church itself, it is considered autocephalous, by others an autonomous church under the jurisdiction of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem. The archbishop is traditionally consecrated by the
Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem The Greek Orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem or Eastern Orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem, officially patriarch of Jerusalem (; ; ), is the head bishop of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, ranking fourth of nine patriarchs in the Easte ...
; in recent centuries, he has usually resided in
Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...
. During the period of the
Crusades The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding t ...
, which was marked by bitterness between the Orthodox and Catholic churches, the monastery was patronized by both the Byzantine emperors and the rulers of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and their respective courts. Dominican theologian Felix Fabri visited the monastery in the 15th century and provided a detailed account. He also described the monastery's gardens, noting the presence of "tall fruit trees, salad herbs, grass, and grain," and "more than three thousand
olive The olive, botanical name ''Olea europaea'' ("European olive"), is a species of Subtropics, subtropical evergreen tree in the Family (biology), family Oleaceae. Originating in Anatolia, Asia Minor, it is abundant throughout the Mediterranean ...
trees, many fig-trees and pomegranates, and a store of
almond The almond (''Prunus amygdalus'', Synonym (taxonomy)#Botany, syn. ''Prunus dulcis'') is a species of tree from the genus ''Prunus''. Along with the peach, it is classified in the subgenus ''Amygdalus'', distinguished from the other subgenera ...
s and other fruits." The olives were used to produce oil for lighting lamps and as a relish in the kitchen. The monastery prospered for most of the Mamluk Sultanate, but as the Sultanate declined, it went through a crisis. While there had been several hundred monks in the mid-14th century, a hundred years later, there were only several dozen. Bedouins began harassing the community, robbing their property in the Christian coastal village of el-Tor. In 1505, the monastery was captured and sacked. Although the Mamluk Sultanate demanded that the property be returned to the monks, they were unable to subdue the Bedouins and maintain order. The German explorer Martin von Baumgarten visited the monastery in 1507 and noticed its decline. On April 18, 2017, an attack by the Islamic State – Sinai Province at a checkpoint near the monastery killed one policeman and injured three police officers.


Manuscripts and icons

The monastery's library, founded sometime between 527 and 565, is recognized by
Guinness World Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a British reference book published annually, list ...
as the world's oldest continuously operating library. It preserves the world's second-largest collection of early codices and
manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...
s, outnumbered only by the Vatican Library. It contains Greek, Christian Palestinian Aramaic, Syriac, Georgian,
Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
,
Geʽez Geez ( or ; , and sometimes referred to in scholarly literature as Classical Ethiopic) is an ancient South Semitic language. The language originates from what is now Ethiopia and Eritrea. Today, Geez is used as the main liturgical langu ...
,
Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
, Armenian, and Church Slavonic manuscripts and books, along with very rare
Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
and Coptic books. In May 1844 and February 1859,
Constantin von Tischendorf Constantin is an Aromanian language, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian language, Megleno-Romanian and Romanian language, Romanian male given name. It can also be a surname. For a list of notable people called Constantin, see Constantine (name). See ...
visited the monastery for research and discovered the Codex Sinaiticus, dating from the 4th century, at the time the oldest almost completely preserved manuscript of the Bible. The finding from 1859 left the monastery for Imperial Russia in circumstances that had been long disputed. But in 2003 Russian scholars discovered the donation act for the manuscript signed by the Council of Cairo Metochion and Archbishop Callistratus on 13 November 1869. The monastery received 9000 rubles as a gift from Tsar
Alexander II of Russia Alexander II ( rus, Алекса́ндр II Никола́евич, Aleksándr II Nikoláyevich, p=ɐlʲɪˈksandr ftɐˈroj nʲɪkɐˈlajɪvʲɪtɕ; 29 April 181813 March 1881) was Emperor of Russia, Congress Poland, King of Poland and Grand Du ...
. The Codex was sold by Stalin in 1933 to the British Museum and is now in the
British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...
, London, where it is on public display. Prior to September 1, 2009, a previously unseen fragment of Codex Sinaiticus was discovered in the monastery's library, as well as among the New Finds of 1975. On other visits (1855, 1857)
Constantin von Tischendorf Constantin is an Aromanian language, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian language, Megleno-Romanian and Romanian language, Romanian male given name. It can also be a surname. For a list of notable people called Constantin, see Constantine (name). See ...
also amassed their more valuable manuscripts ( Greek, Christian Palestinian Aramaic, Georgian, Syriac) and took them with him to St. Petersburg and Leipzig, where they are stored today.


Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson

In February 1892, Agnes S. Lewis discovered an early palimpsest manuscript of the
Gospel Gospel originally meant the Christianity, Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the second century Anno domino, AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message w ...
in St Catherine Monastery's library that became known as the Syriac Sinaiticus and it remains in the monastery's possession. The text was deciphered by Francis Crawford Burkitt and Robert Lubbock Bensly. The twins Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson returned in 1893 with the Cambridge team of the two scholars that included their wives, and also J. Rendel Harris to photograph and transcribe the manuscript in its entirety, as well as to prepare the first catalogues of the Syriac and Arabic manuscripts. Among the new finds two additional palimpsest manuscripts came to light containing additional passages of the Old Syriac Gospels.Sebastian P. Brock, Two Hitherto Unattested Passages of the Old Syriac Gospels in Palimpsests from St Catherine's Monastery, Sinai, ''Δελτίο βιβλικῶν Μελετῶν'' 31, 2016, pp. 7–18. The Monastery also has a copy of the Ashtiname of Muhammad, in which
Muhammad Muhammad (8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. Muhammad in Islam, According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the tawhid, monotheistic teachings of A ...
is claimed to have bestowed his protection upon the monastery. Additionally, the monastery houses a copy of Mok'c'evay K'art'lisay, a collection of supplementary books of the '' The Georgian Chronicles'' dating to the 9th century. The most important manuscripts have since been filmed or digitized and are therefore accessible to scholars. With planning assistance from Ligatus, a research center of the
University of the Arts London The University of the Arts London is a public collegiate university in London, England, United Kingdom. It specialises in arts, design, fashion, and the performing arts. The university is a federation of six arts colleges: Camberwell College of ...
, the library was extensively renovated, reopening at the end of 2017.


Sinai Palimpsests Project

Since 2011, a team of imaging scientists and experienced scholars in the decipherment of palimpsest manuscripts from the U.S. and Europe have photographed, digitized, and studied the library's collection of palimpsests during the international Sinai palimpsests project. Palimpsests are notable for having been reused one or more times over the centuries. Since parchment was expensive and time-consuming to produce, monks would erase texts with orange juice or scrape them off and write over them. Though the original texts were once assumed to be lost, imaging scientists used narrowband multispectral imaging techniques and technologies to reveal features that were difficult to see with the human eye, including ink residues and small grooves in the parchment. These images have subsequently been digitized and are now freely available for research at the UCLA Library for scholarly use. As of June 2018, over 160 palimpsests have been identified, with over 6,800 pages of texts recovered. The newer finds were discovered in a secluded storage area of the St George Tower in 1975. Highlights include "108 pages of previously unknown Greek poems and the oldest-known recipe attributed to the Greek physician
Hippocrates Hippocrates of Kos (; ; ), also known as Hippocrates II, was a Greek physician and philosopher of the Classical Greece, classical period who is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine. He is traditionally referr ...
;" additional folios for the transmission of the Old Syriac Gospels; two unattested witnesses of an early Christian apocryphal text the Dormition of Mary ( Transitus Mariae) of which most of the Greek text is lost; a previously unknown martyrdom of Patriklos of
Caesarea Maritima Caesarea () also Caesarea Maritima, Caesarea Palaestinae or Caesarea Stratonis, was an ancient and medieval port city on the coast of the eastern Mediterranean, and later a small fishing village. It was the capital of Judaea (Roman province), ...
(
Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...
), one of the eleven followers of Pamphilus of Caesarea; some of the earliest known Georgian manuscripts; as well as insight into dead languages such as the previously hardly attested Caucasian Albanian and Christian Palestinian Aramaic, the local dialect of the early Byzantine period, with many unparalleled text witnesses.


Stainless Steel Boxing Project

The Saint Catherine Foundation partnered with the Ligatus Research Centre at London’s University of the Arts to order the creation of steel boxes for the storage and transportation of rare manuscripts contained within the library at St. Catherine’s Monastery at Mt. Sinai. The objective of the Saint Catherine Foundation is to house 2,187 parchment manuscripts in individual boxes made from stainless steel. These are determined to provide the best protection against the desert environment, natural disasters such as earthquakes, and erosion from age. Stainless steel was recommended over wooden boxes due to the potential of acidic gasses being released inside a sealed box, damaging any pigments in the miniatures that are pH sensitive. Stainless steel boxes are resistant to insect attack while wooden boxes are not. Wood boxes to offer more insulation against heat penetration in case of a fire but are inflammable whereas stainless steel is not. Each case utilizes an oxygen starvation system allowing for greater protection against fire damage. Each box is created from a 304 grade stainless steel sheet, cut from an Amada guillotine, and formed by a CNC punch press. Corner seams are hand welded and polished with precision. The inside of each steel box is lined with a polyester foam called Plastazote. Each manuscript is wrapped in acid-free card stock and placed with its spine opposite to the side with the handle. Pressure of the weight of the book is bore by the spine should the box be carried by the handle.


Works of art

The complex houses irreplaceable works of art: mosaics, the best collection of early icons in the world, many in encaustic, as well as liturgical objects, chalices and reliquaries, and church buildings. The large icon collection begins with a few dating to the 5th (possibly) and 6th centuries, which are unique survivals; the monastery having been untouched by Byzantine iconoclasm, and never sacked. The oldest icon on an
Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...
theme is also preserved there. A project to catalogue the collections has been ongoing since the 1960s. The monastery was an important centre for the development of the hybrid style of Crusader art, and retains over 120 icons created in the style, by far the largest collection in existence. Many were evidently created by Latins, probably monks, based in or around the monastery in the 13th century.


Icons

File:Saint Peter-Sinai (6th Century).jpg, Saint Peter depicted in 6th-century hot wax icon File:Encaustic Virgin.jpg, Icon of the enthroned Virgin and Child with saints and angels, 6th century File:Spas vsederzhitel sinay.jpg, The oldest known icon of '' Christ Pantocrator'', encaustic on panel File:Last Judgement Sinai 12th century.jpg, '' The Last Judgement'', 11th-12th century, by John Tokhabi File:Crucifixion Icon Sinai 13th century.jpg, Crucifixion, 13th century File:Holy Doors.jpg, Holy doors File:Mary & Child Icon Sinai 13th century.jpg, Madonna and Child, 13th century File:Mikharkhangel.jpg, 13th century Byzantine icon of Saint Michael the Archangel File:Transfiguration of Christ Icon Sinai 12th century.jpg, Transfiguration, 12th century File:The Ladder of Divine Ascent Monastery of St Catherine Sinai 12th century.jpg, '' Ladder of Divine Ascent'' File:John VIII Palaiologos, Sinai.jpg, Emperor John VIII Palaiologos File:Icon of Saint Catherine.jpg, Icon of Saint
Catherine of Alexandria Catherine of Alexandria, also spelled Katherine, was, according to tradition, a Christian saint and Virginity, virgin, who was martyred in the early 4th century at the hands of the emperor Maxentius. According to her hagiography, she was both a ...
File:Icon Iakovos Moskos.jpg, The monastery, 18th century File:Vethiy Denmi (Icons from Saint Catherine's Monastery).jpg, Christ as the Ancient of Days, 7th century File:Icon of St. George and a Bagratid Georgian king. Sinai, Monastery of Saint Catherine..jpg, 12th century icon of Saint George and David IV of Georgia


Historical images

File:Saint Catherine's Monastery, Carsten Niebuhr, 1762.jpg, Carsten Niebuhr (1762) File:Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai- drawing from the Description de l'Égypte (1809).jpeg, '' Description de l'Égypte'' (1809) File:David Roberts - Convent of St. Catherine with Mount Horeb - 1927.90 - Cleveland Museum of Art.jpg, David Roberts (1839), published in '' The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, and Nubia'' File:Die Gartenlaube (1861) b 060.jpg, Ernst Keil (1861) File:Adolf Von Meckel - The Saint Catherine Monastery in Sinai.jpg, Adolf Meckel von Hemsbach (1892)


Panoramic view


In literature

The French novelist Pierre Loti describes the monastery and its treasures extensively in ''Le désert'', his 1895 account of a journey on camelback through the Sinai desert.


See also

* Archbishop of Mount Sinai and Raithu * Ashtiname of Muhammad * Caucasian Albanian script *
Charnel House A charnel house is a vault or building where human skeletal remains are stored. They are often built near churches for depositing bones that are unearthed while digging graves. The term can also be used more generally as a description of a plac ...
* Codex Climaci Rescriptus * Codex Sinaiticus * Codex Sinaiticus Rescriptus * Cyril of Jerusalem * Desert Fathers * Gregory of Sinai * John Climacus * Ladder of Divine Ascent * Oldest churches in the world * Martyrs of Palestine * Poustinia * Sinaites in Serbia * Syriac Sinaiticus * Transitus Mariae


Notes


References


Further reading

* * * James Hamilton Charlesworth, ''The New Discoveries in St. Catherine's Monastery'' (= American Schools of Oriental Research Monograph 3) Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 1981. * Alessandro Falcetta (2018). ''A Biography of James Rendel Harris 1852–1941: The Daily Discoveries of a Bible Scholar and Manuscript Hunter''. London, UK: T&T Clark. * * Paul Géhin (2017). ''Les manuscrits syriaques de parchemin du Sinaï et leur membra disjecta''. CSCO 665 / Subsidia 136. Louvain: Peeters. * Margaret Dunlop Gibson (1893). ''How the Codex was Found. A Narrative of Two Visits to Sinai from Mrs. Lewis's Journals. 1892–1893''. Cambridge: Macmillan & Bowes. * Dieter Harlfinger, Diether R. Reinsch, and Joseph A. M. Sonderkamp in Zusammenarbeit mit Giancarlo Prato: ''Specimina Sinaitica: Die datierten griechischen Handschriften des Katharinen-Klosters auf dem Berge Sinai 9. bis 12. Jahrhundert'', Berlin: Reimer 1983. * Agnes Smith Lewis (1898). ''In the Shadow of Sinai. A Story travel and Research from 1895 to 1897''. Cambridge: Macmillan & Bowes. * Panayotis G. Nicolopoulos (1999), ''The New Finds. Holy Monastery and Archdiocese of Sinai'' (Athens). * David C. Parker (2010). ''CODEX SINAITICUS: The Story of the World's Oldest Bible.'' London. British Library. * * * * * Elena Ene D-Vasilescu, "The Monastery of St. Catherine, Sinai and the Romanians", ''Revue des Études Sud-Est Européennes'' ournal of South-East European studies XLVII, 1–4, 2009, pp. 75–87 * *


External links


Official Website of the Holy Monastery of St. Catherine at Mount Sinai

Saint Catherine Area/ World Heritage Listing on UNESCO's Website

Saint Catherine Foundation

St. Catherine's Monastery, Sinai, Egypt

St Catherine Project (digitisation) video

Digitized palimpsests in St. Catherine's Monastery, Sinai


Getty exhibit

* The text of the Charter from
Muhammad Muhammad (8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. Muhammad in Islam, According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the tawhid, monotheistic teachings of A ...
can be rea
here
o



article from ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
''
Information about the town of St. Catherine
*

* ttp://www.sacredland.org/mount-sinai/ More on Saint Catherine's Monastery and Mount Sinai
Caucasian Albanian Alphabet: Ancient Script Discovered in the Ashes
t. Catherine's Azerbaijan International, Vol. 11:3 (Autumn 2003), pp. 38–41.
Article on the Orthodox Church of Mount Sinai by Ronald Roberson on the CNEWA web site


t. Catherine's Azerbaijan International, Vol. 11:3 (Autumn 2003), pp. 44–51.
Map showing the Monastery, 18th century
Eran Laor Cartographic Collection. The National Library of Israel * Pope Gregory X's Privilege for the Holy Monastery of St Catherine of Sinai (24 September 1274)
Engineering Historical Memory
Interactive scholarly edition, Diplomatics and Historical Commentary, Deep zoom, English translation, multimodal resources mashup (publications, images, videos). {{Authority control Archives in Egypt Buildings and structures in South Sinai Governorate Monasteries of the Byzantine Empire Christian monasteries established in the 6th century 565 establishments 560s establishments 6th-century churches Eastern Orthodox churches in Egypt Eastern Orthodox pilgrimage sites Mount Sinai Palimpsests Places associated with hesychasm Tourist attractions in Egypt World Heritage Sites in Egypt