Saint Catherine's Monastery

During Catherine's imprisonment more than 200 people came to see her, including Maxentius' wife, Valeria Maximilla; all converted to Christianity and were subsequently martyred.[11] The furious emperor condemned Catherine to death on a spiked breaking wheel, but, at her touch, it shattered.[12] Maxentius ordered her to be beheaded. Catherine herself ordered the execution to commence. And also according to legend, a milk-like substance rather than blood flowed from her neck.[13]

The monastery was built around the location of what is traditionally considered to be the place of the burning bush seen by Moses.[2] Although it is commonly known as Saint Catherine's, the monastery's official name is the Sacred Autonomous Royal Monastery of Saint Katherine of the Holy and God-Trodden Mount Sinai.[14] The patronal feast of the monastery is the Feast of the Transfiguration. It has become a favorite site of pilgrimage.[2]

1899 map of the monastery surroundings

2011 photo from the north of the monastery, facing southwards

The monastery is located in the shadow of a group of three mountains: Ras Sufsafeh/"Mount Horeb" (peak c. 1 km west), Jebel Arrenziyeb (peak c. 1 km south) and Jebel Musa/"Biblical Mount Sinai" (peak c. 2 km south)

Saint Catherine's Monastery, 1968

Saint Catherine's monastery by Leavitt Hunt, 1852

The oldest record of monastic life at Mount Sinai comes from the travel journal written in Latin by a pilgrim woman named Egeria (Etheria; St Sylvia of Aquitaine) about 381/2–386.[15][16]

The monastery was built by order of Emperor Justinian I (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 the Great, at the site where Moses is supposed to have seen the burning bush.[17] The living bush on the grounds is purportedly the one seen by Moses.[18] Structurally the monastery's king post truss is the oldest known surviving roof truss in the world.[19] The site is sacred to Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.[20]

A mosque 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 mosque was in desolate condition; it was restored in the early 20th century.[21]

During the seventh century, the isolated Christian anchorites of the Sinai were eliminated: only the fortified monastery remained. The monastery is still surrounded by the massive fortifications that have preserved it. Until the twentieth century, access was through a door high in the outer walls. From the time of the First Crusade, the presence of Crusaders in the Sinai until 1270 spurred the interest of European Christians and increased the number of intrepid pilgrims who visited the monastery. The monastery was supported by its dependencies in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Crete, Cyprus and Constantinople.

Ossuary in Saint Catherine's Monastery

The monastery, along with several dependencies in the area, constitute the entire Church of Sinai, which is headed by an archbishop, who is also the abbot of the monastery. The exact administrative status of the church within the Eastern Orthodox Church is ambiguous: by some, including the church itself,[22] it is considered autocephalous,[23][24] by others an autonomous church under the jurisdiction of the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem.[25] The archbishop is traditionally consecrated by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem; in recent centuries he has usually resided in Cairo. During the period of the Crusades 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.

On April 18, 2017, an attack by the Islamic State group at a checkpoint near the Monastery killed one policeman and injured three police officers.[26]

Ashtiname of Muhammad, granting protection and other privileges to the followers of Jesus

6th-century hot wax icon

The library, founded sometime between 548 and 565, is the oldest continuously operating library in the world.[27] The monastery library preserves the second largest collection of early codices and manuscripts in the world, outnumbered only by the Vatican Library.[28] It contains Greek, Christian Palestinian Aramaic, Syriac, Georgian, Arabic, Ethiopic/Ge‘ez, Latin, Armenian, Church Slavonic, and Caucasian Albanian[29] manuscripts and books, and very rare Hebrew Language,[30] some Coptic books.[9]

In May 1844 and February 1859, Constantin von Tischendorf 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 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.[31] The Codex was sold by Stalin in 1933 to the British Museum and is now in the British Library, 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,[32][33] as well as among the New Finds of 1975.[34][9] On other visits (1855, 1857) Constantin von Tischendorf also amassed there more valuable manuscripts (Greek, Christian Palestinian Aramaic, Georgian, Syriac) and took them with him to St Petersburg and Leipzig, where they are stored today.[35][36][37][38][39][40][41]

In February 1892, Agnes S. Lewis discovered an early palimpsest manuscript of the Gospel in St Catherine Monastery's library that became known as the Syriac Sinaiticus and is still in the monastery's possession.[42] Agnes and her sister Margaret D. 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.[43][44][45] Only among the New Finds two additional palimpsest manuscripts came to light containing additional passages of the Old Syriac Gosples.[46]

External video
The Icons of Saint Catherine's Monastery, Sinai, Egypt (Archived), J. Paul Getty Museum

The Monastery also has a copy of the Ashtiname of Muhammad, in which the Islamic prophet Muhammad is claimed to have bestowed his protection upon the monastery.[47]

Additionally, the monastery houses a copy of Mok'c'evay K'art'lisay, a collection of supplementary books of the Kartlis Cxovreba, dating from the 9th century.[48]

The most important manuscripts have since been filmed or digitized, and so are accessible to scholars. With planning assistance from Ligatus, a research center of the University of the Arts London, the library was extensively renovated, reopening at the end of 2017.[49][50][9]

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 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 still 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.[66]

• 
  Icon of the enthroned Virgin and Child with saints and angels, 6th century
• 
  The oldest known icon of Christ Pantocrator, encaustic on panel
• 
  Crucifixion, 13th century
• 
  Holy doors
• 
  Madonna and Child, 13th century
• 
  13th century Byzantine icon of Saint Michael the Archangel
• 
  Transfiguration, 12th century
• 
  Ladder of Divine Ascent
• 
  Emperor John VIII Palaiologos
• 
  Icon of Saint Catherine of Alexandria
• 
  The monastery, 18th century
• 
  Christ as the Ancient of Days, 7th century

• 
  Carsten Niebuhr (1762)
• 
  Description de l'Égypte (1809)
• 
  David Roberts, 1839, published in The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, and Nubia
• 
  Ernst Keil (1861)
• 
  Adolf Meckel von Hemsbach (1892)

A panorama of St Catherine's

• Oriana Baddeley, Earleen Brunner (1996). The Monastery of St Catherine. pp. 120 pages with 79 colour illustrations. ISBN 978-0-9528063-0-1.
• Böttrich, Christfried (2011). Der Jahrhundertfund. Entdeckung und Geschichte des Codex Sinaiticus (The Discovery of the Century. Discovery and history of Codex Sinaiticus). Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt. ISBN 978-3-374-02586-2.
• James Hamilton Charlesworth, The New Discoveries in St. Catherine’s Monastery (= American Schools of Oriental Research Monograph 3) Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1981. ISBN 0-89757-403-6
• Alessandro Falcetta (2018). A Biography of James Rendel Harris 1852 - 1941: The Daily Discoveries of a Bible Scholar and Manuscript Hunter. London: T&T Clark. ISBN 9780567684776
• Forsyth, G. H.; Weitzmann, K. (1973). The Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai - The Church and Fortress of Justinian: Plates. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-472-33000-4.
• Paul Géhin (2017). Les manuscrits syriaques de parchemin du Sinaï et leur membra disjecta. CSCO 665 / Subsidia 136. Louvain: Peeters. ISBN 978-90-429-3501-3
• 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. ISBN 3496007435
• 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). ISBN 9608598427
• David C. Parker (2010). CODEX SINAITICUS: The Story of the World’s Oldest Bible. London. British Library. ISBN 9780712358033
• Porter, Stanley E. (2015). Constantine Tischendorf. The Life and Work of a 19th Century Bible Hunter. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark. ISBN 978-0-5676-5803-6.
• Schick, Alexander (2015). Tischendorf und die älteste Bibel der Welt - Die Entdeckung des CODEX SINAITICUS im Katharinenkloster [Tischendorf and the oldest Bible in the world. The discovery of the Codex Sinaiticus in St. Catherine's Monastery]. Muldenhammer: Jota. ISBN 978-3-935707-83-1. Biography cause of the anniversary of the 200th birthday of Tischendorf with many unpublished documents from his estate. These provide insight into previously unknown details of the discoveries and the reasons behind the donation of the manuscript. Recent research on Tischendorf and the Codex Sinaiticus and its significance for New Testament Textual Research.
• Soskice, Janet (1991). Sisters of Sinai: How Two Lady Adventurers Found the Hidden Gospels. London: Vintage. ISBN 978-1-4000-3474-1.
• Sotiriou, G. and M. (1956–1958). Icones du Mont Sinaï. 2 vols (plates and texts). Collection de L'Institut francais d'Athènes 100 and 102. Athens.
• Elena Ene D-Vasilescu, "The Monastery of St. Catherine, Sinai and the Romanians", Revue des Études Sud-Est Européennes [Journal of South-East European studies], XLVII, 1–4, 2009, pp. 75–87
• Weitzmann, K. (1976). The Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mihnt Sinai: The Icons, Volume I: From the Sixth to the Tenth Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Weitzmann, K.; Galavaris, G. (1991). The Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai. The Illuminated Greek Manuscripts, Volume I. From the Ninth to the Twelfth Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-03602-0.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Saint Catherine Monastery, Mount Sinai.

• 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
• Holy Image, Hallowed Ground: Icons from Sinai Getty exhibit
• Early Icons from Sinai, Belmont U
• St. Catherine's Monastery (Sinai) (OrthodoxWiki article)
• The text of the Charter from Muhammad can be read here or here.
• "At a Mountain Monastery, Old Texts Gain Digital Life" article from The New York Times
• Information about the town of St. Catherine
• Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Monastery of St. Catherine" . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
• Prophet Muhammad's Letter to Monks of St. Catharine Monastery
• More on Saint Catherine's Monastery and Mount Sinai
• Caucasian Albanian Alphabet: Ancient Script Discovered in the Ashes [St. 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
• The Albanian Script: The Process – How Its Secrets Were Revealed [St. 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).