I have wanted to go to St. Catherine’s for years, so this was a minor dream come true.First a little history. Sometime in the early 3rd century AD Christian hermits began to live near a mountain they identified as the mountain of God that Moses met God on. They lived near a bush they identified as the “burning bush” that God used to speak to Moses through. How this site was originally identified has been lost to history.
Around 320AD, the mother of the new Christian Roman emperor, Helena, authorized the building of a church at that location. More monks went into the area, but found they were routinely attached by the pagan locals. So in 542 AD the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I built fortress-like walls around the chapel and a new basilica (church). The church was renamed after a martyred Christian woman named Catherine, who was killed for her faith in the late 3rd century.
That building exists to this day. Making it one of the oldest existing and continually occupied churches in the world. In the early Moslem period, the story goes that Mohammed himself gave them a writ of protection that allowed them to go unmolested over the centuries. Her tall granite walls helped too and until the past century, the only way in was to be raised up in a basket – there were no doors.
Here is the bush. It does not seem to be on fire.
More than just the building itself, St. Catherine’s is a repository of some of the oldest copies of the Bible ever found, along with many other writings and fantastic Christian art. The collection consists of some 3,500 volumes in Greek, Coptic, Arabic, Armenian, Hebrew, Slavic, Syriac, Georgian and other languages. It includes the Codex Sinaiticus, one of the earliest copies of the Bible we have (4th century A.D.).
There is only a small cemetary, so the bones of the monks are routinely stored in a small chapel outside the monastery. Yes, this is a little bit creepy.
No pictures were allowed in the church, but here is a shot I captured through the door. This photo does not do the beautiful church justice. It is stunning.
There is no place in the world like St Catherine’s and it is one of the Christian churches greatest historical treasures.
