Saint Catherine Monastery

Saint Catherine Monastery

The Saint Catherine Monastery, located at the foot of Mount Sinai on the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, is one of the oldest continuously functioning Christian monasteries in the world. It was founded between 548 and 565 AD by order of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I, on the site traditionally identified as the place of the Burning Bush, where God is believed to have spoken to Moses according to biblical tradition. The monastery lies in a remote mountain valley at an elevation of about 1,585 meters, surrounded by rugged granite peaks, approximately 120 kilometers north of Sharm el-Sheikh. Enclosed by massive defensive walls built to protect its inhabitants from raids, the complex includes the Church of the Transfiguration, monks’ cells, chapels, a refectory, and gardens sustained by ancient water systems. Saint Catherine’s Monastery is renowned for its exceptional library, which holds the second-largest collection of early Christian manuscripts in the world after the Vatican, including the famous Codex Sinaiticus. It also preserves an unparalleled collection of Byzantine icons, many of which survived the period of iconoclasm due to the monastery’s isolation. Declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2002, the monastery is sacred to Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, reflecting centuries of religious coexistence. To this day, it remains an active Greek Orthodox monastic community, serving both as a place of worship and as a living monument to the spiritual, historical, and cultural heritage of the Sinai region.