Saint Catherine Area

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Saint Catherine's Monastery at the mouth of an inaccessible gorge at the foot of Mount Sinai is one of the oldest continuously functioning Christian monasteries.

The monastery was built by order of Emperor Justinian I between 527 and 565, enclosing the Chapel of the Burning Bush ordered built by Helena, the mother of Constantine I, at the site where Moses is supposed to have seen the burning bush; the living bush on the grounds is purportedly the original. The site is sacred to three major world religions - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Year	Decision	Comments
2003	Rejected	Regarding extension on natural criteria (to resubmit the nomination as a cultural landscape)
2002	Inscribed	Reasons for inscription

Reviews

Christer Sundberg (Sweden):

The last leg of my Egyptian trip – the Sinai Peninsula and Sharm El Sheik – heading for the Saint Catherine Monastery in the mountains. I’m sure that Sharm El Sheik is a haven for those who just loves resorts, especially in combination with diving but in my - strictly personal opinion – its nothing but a sad place with one concrete hotel next to the other and garbage littered desert. If you want to go here I strongly recommend the small towns of Dahab and Nuweiba further up the east coast of Sinai.

At the time of my visit to Saint Catherine’s, the entire tourist population of Sharm El Sheik must have decided to go here. Given the crowds, I still got quite a nice view and understanding of a monastery that with its desolate location has been virtually uninfluenced by the surrounding world over many centuries, preserving a religious ambience that you only find in Jerusalem or in religious centres in Russia.

The reason for Saint Catherine’s location, in the midst of the Sinai Mountains, is of course Moses and the mountain where he received the Ten Commandments from God. Besides Moses, they say that the desert and the Sinai Mountains have given birth to many prophets and philosophers thanks to its desolate, beautiful and majestic landscape - once there’s nothing around you, you have to look inside to find truth and meaning to life. Believe me….it works…!

Date posted: February 2006

Paul Tanner (UK):

Unfortunately St Catherine’s closes for various religious days and, to complicate matters further, is still operating on the Julian, not the Gregorian calendar! I know of no way to check in advance whether it will be open on any particular day or not.

So, on my second visit we could not get in (luckily I had already visited the “Burning bush” and the library). There is still Mount Sinai to climb however! It provides some fine views down onto the monastery and a wide panorama at the top. It will take about 3hrs. It is “traditional” to do it at night (when you can make it more of a “pilgrimage”) for the sunrise but if (as we are not) you are not a great lover of sunrises it is a reasonable climb in winter before the sun rises too high.

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