Saint Catherine’s Monastery

Saint Catherine’s Monastery

During the period of seventh century, the prophet Mohammad dictated a long document granting protection to the monastery and exempting it from taxes. A copy of it can be seen hanging in the Icon Gallery, next to Napoleon’s letter of protection written in 1798. Ottoman armies was built mosque inside the Monastery’s walls in 1381.that the complex was partly Muslim, saving it from destruction. Since the eleventh century the Monastery has been known as St Catherine’s Monastery. Its library contains a collection of 5000 books and over 3000 manuscripts (most of which are in Greek), including some of the most ancient and important in the world, and is considered second only to that of the Vatican. Throughout its history, also the monastery has received gifts from popes, Christian princes.

Itinerary
This is a typical itinerary for this product

Stop At: St. Catherine's Monastery, At the Foot of Mount Horeb, Saint Catherine Egypt

It is approx 3 HRS to reach to St Catherine’s Monastery from Sharm El Shiekh, the earliest surviving bastion of Christianity, make you go through breathtaking landscapes of arid rock formations, then desolate expanses of desert and the occasional Bedouin camp. The monastery was founded by the Emperor Justinian and Empress Theodora between 527-535 A.D. at the foot of Mount Sinai and Jebel Megafa , discover a centre of worship and learning for over 1450 years. St Catherine was born Dorothea to a noble family in Alexandria in AD 294, and she was studied poetry, music, art, physics, mathematics, astronomy and philosophy at a pagan school, it was before converting to Christianity and taking the name of Catherine at baptism. She was tortured and beheaded for her faith by Emperor Maximus on 25 November AD 305 in Alexandria. according to tradition her body disappeared and was transported by angels to the highest mountain peak of the Sinai Peninsula. it’s begin from three centuries later, following a dream, some monks from the monastery found her relics, brought them down from the mountain, and placed them in a gilded sarcophagus, which now stands in the basilica choir.

Duration: 2 hours