Saint Catherine’s Monastery and Mount Sinai
by Shahinda Abdalla
Designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Saint Catherine’s Monastery is the oldest continuously inhabited Christian monastery. Built in the 6th century at the foot of Mount Sinai, it survives to this day with an unbroken history and is home to the world’s oldest continually operating library. Its library collection is quite impressive and second only to that of the Vatican, holding extremely rare works such as the Codex Sinaiticus and possibly the largest collection of early Christian icons including the earliest known depiction of Jesus as Christ. The monastery has never been destroyed in all its history and still looks pretty much the same preserving its Greek and Roman heritage. Built by the order of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I around what is claimed to be the burning bush seen by Moses, Saint Catherine’s Monastery is located at the very place where God appeared to Moses and is therefore a sacred site to all three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Saint Catherine’s monastery also encloses the “Well of Moses”, where it is said that Moses met his wife, Zipporah. Today, the well remains to be one of the monastery’s main sources of water.
Convent of St. Catherine on Mt. Sinai. Salted paper print by Leavitt Hunt, 1852. Hunt, a photographer and lawyer of independent means, was the first American photographer to visit and photograph the Middle East. (Image Source)
Originally the monastery was called the Greek Orthodox Monastery of the God-trodden Mount Sinai but it was renamed centuries later after the body of Saint Catherine of Alexandria mysteriously appeared on the mountain. Saint Catherine was a popular saint in Europe during the Middle Ages. The story goes that for defending her Christian faith, she was sentences to death on a piked breaking wheel but at her touch the wheel shattered, and after which she was ordered to be beheaded. The relics of Saint Catherine are held inside the monastery to this day and has in turn made it a favorite pilgrimage site for many from all over the world. Whether you hike up Mount Sinai as a spiritual pilgrimage or merely to stand on the highest peak in Sinai and see a view like no other, either way you are in for a very special experience that will stay with you forever. The hike takes on average between five to seven hours and is often done overnight for a spectacular sunrise experience. There are two routes up the mountain, one is the original 6th century route - a steeper and shorter route, and the other is the more recent 19th century route called the camel route as you can go up for a large portion of it with assistance on a camel with the last stretch only containing steep steps that must be climbed on foot.
Saint Catherine downtown on snowy day (Image Source)
The whole area surrounding the foot of Mount Sinai is now known as the city of Saint Catherine (pronounced in Arabic as Sant Katrin). It lies in the South Sinai Governorate of Egypt. The city is 1,586 meters above sea level which means that the temperature fluctuates drastically between the day and night time often going to sub-zero temperatures during the night time. It is one of the few places it often snows in in Egypt which has deemed it the nickname White Catherine, Egypt’s White Roof. Its unique high-altitude ecosystem means that the Saint Catherine fauna is quite special with some of the rarest species such as the Sinai baton blue butterfly — the world’s smallest butterfly, flocks of Nubian ibex and hundreds of medicinal plants.