In the 7th century, the Arab conquests took place, but the monastery was not destroyed. The Prophet Mohammed himself granted his protection to this place, for which a corresponding charter was issued. A copy of it is still kept in a local museum, and the original is in Istanbul in Turkey. However, the period of rule of Arab rulers left its mark on the monastery - in the 10th century, one of the chapels was rebuilt into a mosque.
The monastery has survived untouched to this day. Nothing has changed here, except for the gate, which was hollowed out in the fortress wall. Previously, it was possible to get inside only on a special lift, the remains of which can be seen on the northeastern wall.
Now the monastery of St. Catherine is not only an ancient monument, but also a repository of ancient books, scrolls and icons. There are also shrines associated with the life of the prophet Moses. This place is sacred to both Christians and Jews.
The first thing that strikes tourists is the mighty walls of St. Catherine's Monastery. Fortunately, the monastery was never besieged by large enemy armies. The walls were created to protect against local nomads. During times Byzantine Empire a permanent garrison of soldiers was on duty here, but in subsequent eras the monks themselves were responsible for protecting the monastery.
The main attraction inside is the Burning Bush. This is a thorn bush that played a large role in the Old Testament of the Bible.
Let's remember this story. The Israelites were enslaved in Egypt, where they were forced to do hard work and were oppressed in every possible way. At one point, the Egyptians began killing male Israeli babies. One of the women gave birth to a son and hid him for three months. When it was no longer possible to hide it, she put it in a basket and floated it down the river.
One of Pharaoh's daughters caught the basket and took the child to her, calling him Moses. When Moses grew up, he saw a taskmaster beating a Jew. Moses killed the overseer, but was forced to flee and go into exile.
On the way, Moses stopped at a well. The girls approached the well to water their sheep, but other shepherds began to drive them away. Moses stood up for the girls, for which their father sheltered him. Moses stayed with these people and soon married one of these girls.
One day Moses was tending the flock and saw very strange phenomenon– the thorn bush burned, but did not burn out. He came up to look at this miracle and heard the voice of God from the bush. God ordered Moses to take off his shoes, and then ordered him to go to Egypt to free his people from slavery.
This bush, which burned but did not burn out, is called “Burning Bush”. It was near this bush that the first chapel was built, and then a monastery was built around it. The chapel was rebuilt into a large temple.
We mentioned the well near which Moses met the seven girls. This well is now located on the territory of the monastery, and tourists also see it during excursions.
From the moment of construction to the present day, this is the main source of water for the inhabitants of the monastery. Of course, he looks completely different than during the life of Moses.
Strange, but there are no legends about the miraculous properties of the water from this well. We're talking about official sources. The guide can tell you any “fable”.
If we are talking about Egyptian guides, then it is worth mentioning the peculiarities of their work. They tell it in such a way that tourists find it interesting, and they consider the problem of reliability to be unimportant. We advise you to be careful and not take all their words “on faith.”
This temple was built on the site of a chapel back in the 6th century. There are a lot of remarkable things here for tourists, but the most important thing is the mosaic of the Transfiguration and the relics of St. Catherine.
The vault above the altar is decorated with stunning mosaics, which have been preserved since the foundation of the temple in the 6th century. In the 20th century, it was cleaned and restored by American specialists.
Many tourists do not notice this mosaic, since it is covered by part of the iconostasis. You need to walk forward through the temple to see it.
Also in the Basilica of the Transfiguration there are several unique icons, but we will not talk about them in detail. This is a topic for articles on religious sites, and our site is aimed at tourism. Just walk and look, everything is very beautiful here.
Monastery of St. Catherine, or Sinai Monastery- located on the Sinai Peninsula, perhaps the most ancient Christian monastery on the planet. It was built almost one and a half millennia ago, around it there are Mount Moses, mountain Safsara And Mount Catherine. This Holy place annually hosts thousands of tourists, and since 2002 it has officially been part of.
"Mount Sinai", El Greco
The first Christians on the Sinai Peninsula appeared in the 40s. I century These were mainly immigrants from Lower Egypt, who took refuge in these desert places from the persecution of the Roman emperors Decius, Maximin and especially Diocletian. The hermits settled near the top of the Sinai ridge, known as Mount Moses (in Arabic - Jebel Musa, Christians call it the Divine Mountain), where, according to Old Testament, The Lord appeared to Moses and spoke to him from a fiery thorn bush - Burning Bush . Here Moses was given the Ten Commandments, which were subsequently carved on stone tablets kept in the Temple of Jerusalem.
"Moses on Mount Sinai" by Jean-Leon Jerome
Sinai contains many places known from the Old Testament. Here passed the path along which the prophet Moses led the ancient Jews to the Promised Land, saving them from the persecution of the Egyptian pharaohs. The cracked stone on which Moses struck with his staff and brought out water to give drink to the thirsty people is still shown here. The cave of the prophet Elijah has been preserved here. On the Sinai Peninsula there is the mysterious Jebel el-Mukattab - the Mountain of Inscriptions. The top of the mountain is completely strewn with slabs and stones covered with incomprehensible hieroglyphs, discovered by Carsten Niebuhr in 1762 and explored by the Englishman William Flinders Petrie in 1904–1905. These inscriptions, the so-called Proto-Sinaitic, date back to the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. e. and have not yet been deciphered.
All these places have traditionally been objects of worship for many years, especially since the relics of the Christian martyr Catherine, who was wheeled in Alexandria in 313 during the reign of Emperor Diocletian, were miraculously transferred to Sinai. In 373, the first of the pilgrims who left a description of their journey, the Egyptian monk Ammonius from Kanopus, visited Sinai. In the 4th century. Empress Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine the Great, ordered the Byzantine governor in Egypt to build a church on Mount Sinai, in the place where the fiery thorn bush appeared to Moses, and near it a “strong tower.” At the beginning of the 6th century. Emperor Justinian founded the monastery of St. Catherine here. Its construction was completed in 557.
After the capture of Sinai by the Arabs, the monastery of St. Catherine remained a tiny island of Christianity in the lands of Islam. It has also become a real oasis among barren mountains and deserts. Over the centuries, such incalculable cultural riches have been accumulated within the walls of the monastery that it can rightfully be considered a “treasure island.”
Eight thousand steps carved into the rock lead from the Sinai Monastery to the ridge of Mount Moses. Its height is 2244 m above sea level. At the top of the mountain there is a small chapel of the Burning Bush, replacing the one that Empress Helena built here. Under the chapel there is a small grotto - according to legend, this is the place where Moses twice spent 40 days and 40 nights in fasting and prayer. Nearby are the ruins of a small mosque built in the 14th century.
Despite the fact that throughout its long history the Sinai monastery was repeatedly attacked by bandits, its inhabitants managed to find a way to coexist with the surrounding Bedouin tribes. For a set fee, the Arabs delivered provisions to the monastery, and the Prophet Muhammad himself was pleased with the hospitality of the Sinai monks. In gratitude for this, in 624 he granted the monastery of St. Catherine a safe conduct, in which he confirmed all the previous privileges given to the monastery by Emperor Justinian, and added his own to them. This document, which has become one of the most precious relics of the monastery, is inscribed in ancient Arabic Kufic script on the skin of a gazelle. The text of the letter was certified by the handprint of the prophet, under which were the signatures of 21 witnesses.
Since 1527, the monastery has kept only a copy of this document, made on Turkish, - the original was taken by Sultan Selim I to Istanbul, where this letter (the Turks call it “ahti-name”) was kept in the Sultan’s treasury along with a hair from the Prophet’s beard and a piece of his clothing.
On December 19, 1798, Emperor Napoleon visited Sinai. He also issued a safe conduct to the monks of the Sinai Monastery, which exempted the monastery from all taxes.
But, of course, no letters could protect against natural disasters. The Monastery of St. Catherine was destroyed twice: on April 30, 1312, when an earthquake occurred on the Sinai Peninsula and the northeastern walls of the monastery collapsed, and the second time - at the end of the 18th century, when the eastern wall of the monastery collapsed due to dilapidation. It was restored by order of Napoleon's governor, General Kleber, at his own expense.
Throughout its history, the Sinai monastery maintained relative autonomy, despite the fact that the Patriarchs of Jerusalem, Antioch and Alexandria had been fighting over it since the 6th century. In 1575, a specially convened Council of Constantinople confirmed the independence of the Sinai monastery. Today Sinai Orthodox Church is autonomous, under the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Jerusalem.
For many centuries, Sinai was closely connected with Russia. Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich (1584–1598) issued a “letter of alms” to Archimandrite Meletius of Sinai, who visited Moscow. This document granted the Sinai monks the right to travel to Moscow for “alms” every three years. Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov (1613–1645) confirmed this letter on June 16, 1630. In subsequent years, “charity letters” to the Sinai Monastery were regularly renewed. Until 1917, Russian pilgrims were regular guests of Sinai.
The Sinai Monastery really looks like a fortress - its walls, made of giant stone blocks, are so high that even the bell tower is not visible behind them. In the past, the muzzles of cannons and gun muzzles protruding from the loopholes gave the monastery an even greater resemblance to a fortress. Despite the safe conduct of the Byzantine emperors, Turkish sultans and the Prophet Muhammad himself, despite the Bedouins who guarded the monastery under an ancient agreement with the monastery, at all times there were bands of robber people without clan, without tribe. More than once the monks had to fight off attacks, or even simply pay off robbers.
Therefore, it is not surprising that from ancient times until the twentieth century. there was a custom to constantly keep the gates of the monastery locked, and to communicate with the outside world using ropes: they raised and lowered provisions, cargo, and often pilgrims delivered to the monastery. Even the wrought iron gates - by the way, the only ones - are located so high above the ground that they had to be climbed using a special lifting device. The gates were opened so rarely that it turned into an important event for the entire neighborhood.
It was possible to enter the monastery only by letter of recommendation abbot, who lived permanently in Cairo. Several travelers, including the famous Danish explorer Carsten Niebuhr, who visited here in 1762, never managed to get to the monastery.
It is difficult to maintain a monastic farm: there are no pastures around, and even today provisions have to be delivered from Cairo. Thanks to the presence of a spring and an artificial irrigation system, the monks managed to breed beautiful gardens with cypress, olive, fig, almond and orange trees. When the bishop himself arrives at the monastery, the gates are thrown wide open, and the monks, according to the established custom here, treat the assembled Bedouins with fruit. Next to the garden there is a chapel with a crypt where the inhabitants of the monastery are buried. Before this, the bodies of the deceased monks are buried in the sand until they dry, and then transferred to the crypt.
Church of the Transfiguration, rising in the courtyard of the monastery, is one of the most beautiful in the Arab East. It was built by Emperor Justinian and rebuilt in 1710 by an architect from Damascus. The floor of the temple is paved with marble slabs, the icons are decorated precious stones. In the church, in the cancer room white marble, the relics of St. Catherine.
