Saint Catherine’s Monastery
Saint Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai, also known as "Sinai Monastery," is the oldest continuously active Christian monastery in the world, built between A.D. 548 and 565. It is a Greek Orthodox monastery.
| “ | Of its 3,300 manuscripts, two-thirds are in Greek. The rest are principally in Arabic, Syriac, Georgian, and Slavonic, through there are other manuscripts in Polish, Hebrew, Ethiopian, Armenian, Latin, and Persian.[1] | ” |
It is the second largest repository of Christian manuscripts after the Vatican Library, including where the Codex Sinaiticus was discovered. Some of the pages of the Codex Sinaiticus are retained by this monastery.
Its library is being digitized with the help of the University of California.
History
In the 300s A.D. the Roman Empress Helena called for the construction of a sanctuary, and subsequently in the sixth century, Emperor Justinian created a monastery on the site with its fortified walls and mausoleum.
In 1797, Napoleon conquered Egypt and protected the monastery. He arranged for rebuilding its north fortress wall after flooding damaged it in 1798.
Location
It is "situated on Mount Sinai more than 5,000 feet (1,500 metres) above sea level in a narrow valley north of Mount Mūsā in the Sinai peninsula."[2]
