St. Catherine's Monastery - Sinai, Egypt - Wikipedia Entries on Waymarking.com

The monastery was built by order of Emperor Justinian I (reigned 527-565), enclosing the Chapel of the Burning Bush ordered to be 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. Structurally the monastery has the oldest known surviving roof truss in the world, a king post truss. It is also referred to as "St. Helen's Chapel."

The monastery's actual name is the Monastery of the Transfiguration, but it later became associated with St. Catherine of Alexandria, a 3rd-century martyr whose head and hand were brought here for safe keeping in the 10th century. St. Catherine's Monastery became a major pilgrimage destination in the Byzantine Era and it still is today.

The monastery, along with several dependencies in the area, constitute the entire Orthodox Church of Mount Sinai, which is headed by an archbishop, who is also the abbot of the monastery. The main church of the monastery is the Basilica of the Transfiguration (or Katholikon), which was built of granite by the Byzantine architect Stephanos at the same time as the defensive walls. The church structure, the roof, and the carved cedar doors at the entrance are all originals from 527 AD.

In 2002, the area centering on St. Catherine's Monastery was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO because of Mt. Sinai's importance in three major world religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), the natural environment of the area and St. Catherine's historic architecture and art.

Sources: Wikipedia (visit link) and Sacred Destinations (visit link)

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Date Logged Log User Rating   07/07/2008 Arne1 visited it