Patrick Comerford
The monks of Saint Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai have closed their gates to all visitors in a symbolic act of protest following an Egyptian court ruling last week that threatens the future of the monastery.
According to Greek news reports yesterday, the monastic community of about 20 monks has resolved to remain in seclusion, mourning and praying for the monastery’s protection, and is giving no timeline for reopening.
There is a swelling tide of concern across the Orthodox world and in Greek-speaking community around the world about the future of Saint Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai following a disturbing ruling last week by a court in Egypt that appears to threaten the survival of the world’s oldest continually-inhabited Christian monastery.
Saint Catherine’s Monastery was founded in the Sinai Peninsula in the sixth century by Byzantine Emperor Justinian I. It is a Unesco World Heritage Site, known for its ancient manuscripts and icons and revered in all three major monotheistic faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
It was there God spoke to Moses through the Burning Bush and gave him the Ten Commandments; it was there Elijah hid in a crag in the rock; and it was there, Muslims believe, Muhammad was a visiting trader prior to the beginnings of Islam, perhaps even visiting Saint Catherine’s Monastery. It said the monastery was granted a letter of protection from Muhammad in the seventh century and this was reaffirmed by the Ottoman Sultan Selim II in the 16th century.
In recent days, Orthodox leaders around the world have reacted with alarm and the Greek government has spoken out strongly after an Egyptian court ruling last week (28 May). The ruling threatens the monastery’s autonomy and its future and raises fears that Saint Catherine’s could be seized by the state and the monks evicted, and fears for religious freedom in Egypt.
With President Mary McAleese welcoming a group of Egyptian Christian and Muslim leaders to at Áras an Uachtaráin in Dublin in 2006I was a guest on Mount Sinai when I visited Egypt several times while I was working on a programme on Christian-Muslim dialogue about 20 years ago. During those visits, I met Christian and Muslim leaders throughout Egypt, wrote for The Irish Times on the monastery’s library. I have stayed in Cairo, where I walked by the Nile and visited the pyramids and the Sphinx; Alexandria, where the dogmatic debates helped produce the Creeds, Saint Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai; and in monasteries in the Western Desert associated with the Desert Fathers.
Perhaps one of the most unusual experiences during those visits was to preside at the Eucharist at dawn at the top of Mount Sinai with a small group, celebrating with bread and wine taken from the dinner table the night before in Saint Catherine’s Monastery.
During those years, I arranged a visit by Irish bishops to meet Christian and Muslim leaders in Egypt, and reciprocal visits to Ireland that included visits to Aras an Uachtaráin and the Chester Beatty Library, a reception in the Egyptian Embassy, events in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, the chapel in Trinity College Dublin, and the Irish Islamic Centre in Clonskeagh. In all those exchanges, my work was facilitated and encouraged by the Egyptian embassy in Dublin and the Irish, British and Vatican embassies in Cairo, Egyptian church leaders of all traditions, and the offices of the secretary general of the Arab League.
Of course, interfaith relations and religious freedoms were not perfect in Egypt in those days. But they were an example of how they could be worked on, nurtured and encourage. So, I too am disturbed by last week’s ruling and the way its reopens questions about the vulnerability of religious heritage sites in Egypt and religious freedom for both Muslims and Christians.
A court in Sinai ruled last Wednesday in a land dispute between the monastery and the South Sinai governorate, declaring that the monastery ‘is entitled to use’ the land and the archaeological religious sites in the area, all of which ‘the state owns as public property’.
The ruling by the South Sinai Court of First Instance allows for the registration of monastery land in the name of the Egyptian government. The monastery tried to register its land independently in 2012, and submitted documents showing ownership dating back centuries, including the Ottoman decree. But the court ruled that all that evidence is insufficient. The Egyptian General Authority for Land Survey applied in 2021 to register the land as government property, and this request was upheld by the court last week.
The ruling comes in the midst of a controversial government development project is underway to boost visitor numbers to the area, which is popular with both pilgrims and adventure tourists. The area includes a town named after the monastery and a nature reserve. Observers say the project has harmed the ecosystem of the nature reserve and threatens both the monastery and the local community.
The court has effectively turned the area over to the state and the ruling leaves the monastery and the 18-20 monks who live there as tenants at will of the government of the day. The monastic community now fears it is on the brink of eviction and that the entire Sinai Brotherhood is now seen as squatters, disregarding their 15-century presence there.
In a phone conversation on Friday with Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt said Cairo is ‘fully committed to preserving the unique and sacred religious status of Saint Catherine’s monastery, and ensuring it is not violated.’
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said rumours of confiscation were ‘completely unfounded’ and denied any change to the monastery’s legal or spiritual status, saying it ‘does not touch the monastery’s spiritual value, religious significance, or the cemeteries associated with it’. It said the ruling ‘preserves the special and sacred status of the monastery.’
But these responses fail to indicate whether the president and the government accept the monastery and its lands are owned by the monastic community of Saint Catherine’s.
The Greek Prime Minister’s office said Mr Mitsotakis emphasised the importance of ‘preserving the pilgrimage and Greek Orthodox character of the monastery and resolving the issue in an institutional manner’, based on an agreement between the two countries.
In a telephone interview from Cairo at the weekend with the National Herald in Boston, Archbishop Damianos of Sinai, Pharan, and Raitho, and Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai, spoke about the recent developments at the monastery.
Archbishop Damianos said: ‘For over ten years now, we have been in and out of court, because our right of ownership over this barren land – which we always considered ours, handed down to us by sanctified individuals – is being denied … These are holy places visited by people from around the world, from which the Egyptian government benefits; yet they do not wish to recognise them as our property.’
The Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople has called on the Egyptian government and President Sisi to maintain the status quo of Saint Catherine’s Monastery. In a statement last Friday, the Ecumenical Patriarchate said it was ‘disappointed and saddened’ by the ruling and called on the Egyptian government to respect long-standing traditions agreements on Saint Catherine’s Monastery ‘where God once spoke to humankind’.
The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem has said it is ‘deeply troubled’ and reasserted its jurisdiction over and protection of the monastery.
Archbishop Ieronymos II of Athens said the court ruling is ‘scandalous’ and a ‘violent infringement of human and religious rights’ by the Egyptian judicial authorities. He has warned that the monastery’s property would now be ‘seized and confiscated’ despite ‘recent pledges to the contrary’ by Sisi to Mitsotakis. He added: ‘The property of the monastery is being seized and confiscated, and this spiritual lighthouse of Orthodoxy and Hellenism is now facing a question of real survival.’
Despite the rapid growth of tourism in Egypt and the development of resorts such as Sharm el-Sheikh, the Sinai Peninsula has long been a remote region. It takes six or seven hours to travel from Cairo to Saint Catherine’s at the foot of Mount Sinai, and for generations the Sinai Desert remained the wilderness it must have been when the Children of Israel trekked through here for 40 years after they fled from slavery in Egypt and crossed the Red Sea.
Saint Catherine’s Monastery, dating to the fourth century, is the principal tourist attraction in the desert. As a spiritual centre, Saint Catherine’s is a pivotal place in the development of Orthodox spirituality:
• the first Christian icons may have been produced in the fourth century, and the earliest surviving icons, found in Saint Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai, date from the sixth or seventh century;
• Saint John Klimakos, a monk of Mount Sinai who died in the year 606 CE, has been strongly influential on theology, spirituality and iconography through The Ladder of Divine Ascent, a spiritual classic in which he recommends the use of the Jesus Prayer.
• the tradition of iconography from Mount Sinai and Crete strongly influenced Western art after Michael Damaskinos and his pupil El Greco moved from Crete to Italy in the 16th century.
‘We have three types of tourists visiting us,’ the monastery’s abbot, Archbishop Damianos once told the Greek journal Odyssey. ‘There are the devout, there are art lovers who came to see our treasures, and then there are the worst kind – those who come because they consider a daytrip to Saint Catherine’s to be the cultural part of their beach holiday.’
For many visitors, the monastery is the starting point for a daunting three-hour climb to the 600-metre summit of Mount Sinai. The daily trek, led by Bedouin camel drivers, sets off before 3 a.m. so climbers on the rough, steep path are saved from the burning sun. Later in the day – until this week’s closure – the monastery has been open to tourists for only 2½ hours, from 9:30 to noon, and it has remained closed on Fridays, Sundays and all Greek Orthodox holidays.
In this remote corner of the Christendom, the monks of Saint Catherine’s continue to value the desert silence but they have also acquired some of the benefits of 21st-century technology.
The most visible legacy of the Desert Fathers at Saint Catherine’s is a unique library and collection of icons, textiles and religious artefacts. The Icon Gallery includes rare sixth-century icons that survived the ravages of the iconoclast controversy in the eighth and ninth centuries. The library includes 3,500 bound manuscripts, 2,000 scrolls and fragments, and more than 5,000 early printed books, of an age and linguistic diversity matched only by the Vatican Library.
In the monastery library, Father Justin told me how the most valued treasure was once the Codex Sinaiticus, dating from the fourth century. It was ‘borrowed’ in 1865 by a visiting German scholar, Constantin Tischendorf, who promptly presented it to the Tsar; Stalin sold it for £100,00 to Britain in 1933, and the codex now rests in the British Museum. Half a century ago, 15 missing folios were found in the monastery’s north wall in 1975, leaving the monks with part of the oldest existing copy of the New Testament.
Father Justin also showed me one of the copies in the library of the achitames or document with the imprint of Muhammad’s hand, guaranteeing the protection of Saint Catherine’s Monastery under Islamic rule. In the year 635 CE, the monks of Mount Sinai sent a delegation asking for Muhammad’s patronage and protection. The request was granted and was honoured when the Muslims conquered the Sinai in the year 641 CE.
Later, in 1009, the mad Caliph al-Hakim built a mosque within the monastery walls, with an unusual qibla pointing towards Jerusalem rather than Mecca as the direction for prayer. The monks continue to keep open the only mosque to survive within the walls of a monastery, and Father Justin described it as one of the ‘many examples of tolerance, respect and affection’ between Christians and Muslims in Egypt.
The monks admit they would find it difficult to survive without the support and kindness of their local Muslim neighbours. The local Bedouin, from the tiny Jabiliyya tribe, claim descent from 200 Greek soldiers brought by the Emperor Justinian from Alexandria and Thrace to fortify and guard the monastery in the sixth century.
Although they are Muslims, Father Justin told me how they join in many of the monastery festivals and look to the abbot, who is also Archbishop of Sinai, as their community leader, protector, judge, and even as their ‘grandfather’.
He spoke of the support of international donors, the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Courtauld Institute in London, have helped the monks to develop a programme of refurbishment and conservation in the library.
Father Justin pointed out that without this outside help, the resources of the monastery would have been overwhelmed by the task of safeguarding its treasures. The droves of tourists may disturb the morning peace of one of the most isolated monasteries in the world, but the west’s generosity has brought benefits too.
The Church of Sinai is the smallest self-governing Christian denomination in Egypt – its few members include Archbishop Damianos, who is also the Abbot of Mount Sinai, and the 20-25 monks who come mainly from Mount Athos and other parts of Greece. In addition, there are some small dependencies nearby, and four dependencies of Mount Sinai in Greece.
Archbishop Damianos has lived at the monastery since the age of 27, and he was 91 last weekend, just days after the court ruling.
When I was in Crete for Easter in April, I visited two churches in Iraklion that have been traditional dependences of Mount Sinai: Saint Catherine’s Church, now the Museum of Christian Art; and the mediaeval Byzantine Church of Saint Matthew of the Sinaites. The Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, where I have studied in Cambridge, is also under the patronage of Saint Catherine.
An icon of Saint Catherine of Alexandria was one of five or six icons I had on the wall above my desk when I was on the staff of the Church of Ireland Theological Institute in Dublin.
Archbishop Damianos, who is in Cairo, plans to return to Athens within the coming days, while an official Greek delegation is expected in to visit Egypt this week. The monks plan to launch a global awareness campaign, appealing to Christian churches and other religious communities.
Meanwhile, it is important that they receive messages of support from religious leaders around the world, and that Egyptian embassies are made aware of the concerns and feelings of people everywhere.
