St. Catherine’s Monastery; Past, Present and Future
Kenzy Fahmy
Resting in the heart of South Sinai, right at the site where Moses is believed to have seen the Burning Bush, is the Monastery of Saint Catherine, its great ancient stone walls as impressive as the rugged mountains surrounding it. It stands as the oldest continuously inhabited monastery in the world, witnessing the passage of time from its sacred seat at the foot of Mount Sinai. Today, the monastery is one of Egypt’s most important religious heritage sites and an integral part of not only the country’s history, but our global history too.
The monastery gets its name from Catherine of Alexandria, a saint who was martyred by Roman Emperor Maxentius during the 4th century. Daughter to the governor of Alexandria, she converted to Christianity at a young age, converting hundreds of others with her. But Maxentius was still a pagan, persecuting those who had converted, especially Catherine, who he quickly had imprisoned and tortured, hoping this would convince her to forsake her beliefs. While she was locked away, however, she was visited by more than two hundred people, all of whom followed in her footsteps and converted to Christianity, including the emperor’s wife. They too were martyred.
Most of the monastery was built during the 6th century, completed around 565 AD by order of Emperor Justinian I, but its story goes back a further two centuries. Christian pilgrims have been making their way to the spot where the monastery now stands since at least the 3rd century as part of their pilgrimage to the Holy Land, with the earliest account on record being written by a woman called Egeria. During the 4th century, a small chapel was constructed by Empress Helena, Constantine the Great’s mother, around the tree believed to be the burning bush, and it was around this chapel that basilica and the rest of the monastery were constructed.
Since then, a few additions and alterations have been made. During the 11th century, one of the chapels was converted into a mosque under the Fatimids. The belfry tower wasn’t added until the 19th century. But in all this time, the monastery was never destroyed. In all this time, it has received special protection, first by the Romans, then by the Arabs, and then the French. It is said that the Prophet Muhammad once visited the monastery, and sometime during the 7th century, a delegation from Sinai was sent to request a letter of protection from the Prophet, which he apparently provided; it’s more than likely that it was this letter that kept the monastery standing throughout Islamic rule. Napoleon, in 1797, also placed the monastery under his protection, offering help with renovations to one of the old walls.
St. Catherine’s Monastery is also home to the largest collection of icons in the world, with stunning works of art and mosaic decorating its walls. Many of the icons date back to the 13th century, with some going back as far as the 5th and 6th centuries. One of the most sacred works of art is the 6th century Transfiguration Apse mosaic where Jesus is shown radiating light with John, Peter, James, Elijah and Moses encircling him, witnessing the miracle of revelation.
Its library, like the monastery, is the oldest continuously operating library in the world, home to thousands of rare texts and manuscripts, a collection rivalled only by the Vatican. The collection includes the Codex Sinaiticus, the oldest surviving copy of the New Testament, dating back to the 4th century. There are manuscripts in Greek, Syriac, Arabic, Aramaic, Latin, Hebrew and many other languages that are no longer spoken. The books and scrolls are mostly religious in subject, including many gospels, but the library also carries texts on mathematics, poetry and philosophy.
The library is also known for its collection of centuries-old palimpsest manuscripts. The isolated location of St. Catherine’s Monastery, and of most monasteries, meant that parchment wasn’t always readily available. The monks would often have to erase older texts in order to reuse the parchment to record new ones, and until very recently, it was thought that these erased texts were forever lost. Multispectral imaging techniques have allowed us to see past what the eye can see though, and thanks to these modern technologies, we’ve been able to detect signs and residues of older texts that help us build a picture of what they used to contain.
Organizations are now working to digitize the monastery’s entire collection in an effort to both preserve it, and to make it more accessible to scholars. In 2011, UCLA and the Early Manuscripts Electronic Library began to decipher the palimpsests using modern imaging technology as part of the Sinai Palimpsests Project. Hundreds of texts that date back to the Middle Ages have been discovered, as well as several unknown languages. Another project to catalogue the monastery’s collection of icons has been underway since the 1960s.
In 2002, St. Catherine’s Monastery was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, its surroundings were named a protectorate in the 80s. The entire area of St. Catherine is steeped in natural, historic and cutlural heritage, from the monastery itself to the customs and traditions of the Jabalaya tribe, all part of the unique mountainous ecosystem that can be found nowhere else in the world. St. Catherine is one of Egypt’s most valuable and most sacred spaces, it has been for hundreds of years and to many thousands of people. Modernity and development are now too making their way up to the mountains, so it’s more vital than ever to do what we can to protect our heritage, especially in areas like St. Catherine.