St Catherine's Monastery — the oldest continuously operated Christian community in the world.

What you are looking at

St Catherine's Monastery sits in a granite basin at 1,570 metres elevation on the southern flank of Mount Sinai, in the geographic centre of the Sinai peninsula. The walled enclosure was built between 548 and 565 AD by order of the emperor Justinian to protect the existing community of hermits who had gathered around the site of the Burning Bush — the bush from which, according to the Book of Exodus, God spoke to Moses. The monastery has operated continuously since, making it by some measures the oldest active Christian institution in the world. The community has been Greek Orthodox since the seventh century and is governed under the autonomy of the Archbishop of Sinai, who reports ecclesiastically to the Patriarchate of Jerusalem.

Three things make the monastery what it is for the visitor. First, the library, which holds approximately 3,300 manuscripts in twelve languages and is by some measures the oldest active library in continuous operation in the world. Among its holdings are the Codex Sinaiticus (a fourth-century Greek Bible, the largest portion of which is now in the British Library after its 19th-century removal), the Sinai Arabic NF, and a substantial corpus of Slavic, Georgian, Ethiopic and Christian Palestinian Aramaic material. Library access for researchers is granted by the librarian under a formal application procedure (see below). Second, the icon collection, displayed in the small but well-curated gallery, which survived the Byzantine iconoclasm of the 8th-9th centuries because the Sinai sat outside imperial reach and produced the densest concentration of pre-iconoclasm icons surviving anywhere. Third, the Burning Bush courtyard, with what the tradition identifies as a descendant of the Old Testament bush growing from the granite of the courtyard wall.

The visitor route covers the central church (the Katholikon, with its sixth-century mosaic of the Transfiguration in the apse), the icon gallery, the Burning Bush courtyard, the charnel house at the foot of Mount Sinai, and a perimeter walk along the inside of the fortified walls. The library is not on the standard visitor route — access is by application only. Photography is permitted in the courtyard and exterior; the church interior and the icon gallery are no-photography zones and the rule is strictly enforced.

Library access procedure

The monastic library is administered by the librarian under the authority of the Archbishop. Access is granted to researchers, by formal application, for the consultation of specific manuscripts. The procedure has been substantially the same since the early 20th century and is set out below as we observed it at the last verification.

1. Identify the manuscript. The library does not entertain open-ended applications. You must name the specific shelfmark (Sinaiticus, Sinai Arabic NF, etc.) that you intend to consult.
2. Prepare a bilingual application. The cover letter is expected in both English and Greek, addressed to the Father Librarian by his current title. The body of the letter sets out the applicant's institutional affiliation, the specific manuscript, the research purpose, and the proposed dates. A supporting letter from the applicant's institution accompanies it.
3. Submit by post or by hand. Email submissions are accepted but require physical follow-up; the librarian's office prefers an original signed letter on institutional headed paper.
4. Wait. The current backlog stands at approximately five months from submission to first response. A confirmed slot is then booked typically three to six months after that.
5. On site. The reading room is the small library annex above the icon gallery. Pencils only. Photography is permitted at the librarian's discretion and on a per-folio basis.

Subscribers at the Library and Field tiers receive the current bilingual application template, the librarian's current name and contact, and the recent acceptance-rate statistics. Service C (Monastic-library application support) is the desk's commissioned offering for applicants who want their application professionally drafted before submission.