Saint Catherine's Monastery
π Location: South Sinai, at the foot of Mount Sinai Β Β· Β πΊ Period: Byzantine, founded 548β565 AD Β Β· Β ποΈ Tickets: free entry; donations welcome
Tucked into a granite gorge below Mount Sinai, Saint Catherine's is the oldest continuously operating Christian monastery on earth. The Emperor Justinian ordered its fortified walls built in the mid-6th century to protect the hermits who already lived around what tradition holds to be the Burning Bush where God spoke to Moses. UNESCO inscribed the whole complex on the World Heritage list in 2002.
For 1,500 years the monastery has functioned without interruption β surviving Persian, Arab, Crusader, Ottoman and modern eras, partly thanks to an ahtiname (letter of protection) attributed to the Prophet Muhammad himself, a copy of which still hangs inside. Its library is the second-richest collection of early Christian manuscripts in the world after the Vatican, and the Codex Sinaiticus (now in London) was found here.
Inside the walls visitors can see the Church of the Transfiguration, the descendant of the Burning Bush still growing in the courtyard, the chapel built over Moses's well, and a stunning museum of Byzantine icons β including some of the very few that survived the iconoclasm of the 8th century.
Highlights
- The supposed Burning Bush in the courtyard
- 6th-century Church of the Transfiguration with original apse mosaic
- Manuscript and icon museum (Sacred Sacristy)
- Charnel house of the monks' bones
- Sunrise hike up Mount Sinai starting from the monastery gate
Visiting
- Opening hours: roughly 9 am β noon, MonβThu and Sat (closed Fri, Sun, and major Orthodox feasts)
- Tickets: entry is free; museum has a separate ticket
- Dress: modest β shoulders and knees covered
- Best time: combine with the sunrise hike up Mt Sinai (3 hrs up, descend, then visit the monastery at opening)
- Nearby: Coloured Canyon, Dahab