Egypt Guide
Sinai
The Monastery of St Catherine
The Monastery of St Catherine is a Greek Orthodox foundation. Its origins date back to 337 AD, when the Byzantine Empress Helena ordered the construction of a chapel around the putative Burning Bush, already a focus for hermits and pilgrimages. During the sixth century, the site's vulnerability to raiders persuaded Emperor Justinian to finance a fortified enclosure and basilica, and to supply two hundred guards – half of them Greeks or Slavs – from whom the Jebeliya Bedouin claim descent.
Although the Prophet Mohammed is said to have guaranteed the monastery's protection after the Muslim conquest, the number of monks gradually dwindled until the "discovery" of St Catherine's relics, which ensured a stream of pilgrims and bequests during the period of Crusader domination (1099–1270). Since then, it has had cycles of expansion and decline, on occasion being totally deserted. Most of the monks today have come here from the monasteries of Mount Athos in Greece.