Continuing Orthodox monasticism’s oldest unbroken tradition, Sinai monks still liturgize, shoeless, over the roots of the Burning Bush. On the holy ground where Moses was commanded to remove his sandals – together with all earthly logic – monks turn diversity’s polarizing forces to unity – some of the ways St. Catherine’s Monastery brings Byzantium’s patristic spirit into the modern era as living tradition. Read more...
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The Sinai Palimpsests Project new website has information on the technology and people involved, as well as the Sinai manuscripts and library. Over the next year photographs of the Sinai manuscripts will be posted. What are palimpsests and why are they important? Read on to find out....
The British Library and Hendricksons have published a collection of essays that constitutes an important reappraisal of the history of the Codex Sinaiticus, one of the "most important books in the world," for it includes the oldest complete copy of the New Testament. One of the essays was written by Archbishop Damianos of Sinai on The Shepherd of Hermas and its inclusion in Codex Sinaiticus. Read more....
A special delegation including Imams from Al-Azhar University in Egyp visits Saint Catherine’s Monastery as part of a peace initiative. Read more....
In April 2015 the Department of Art & Archaeology at Princeton University mounted an international conference on the icons at the Monastery of St. Catherine's on Mount Sinai (A New Look: Sinai and its Icons in Light of the Digitization of the Weitzmann Archive). See more...
Liturgizing at the Saint's Cave and Around the Desert
Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Today, as in ancient times, the Sinai desert rang with praises to the glory of God, as three separate Liturgies took place simultaneously. As the fourth Sunday in Great Lent is dedicated all over the world to Saint John Climacus, the author of the famed Ladder of Divine Ascent, monks liturgized at the cave where the saint spent four decades in solitary prayer. Another was celebrated at another ancient hermitage whose Feast happened to fall today, and the third Liturgy of course took place in the great basilica of St. Catherine’s. See more...