Saint Catherine’s Monastery: A Tangible Testament to the Vitality of Eighth Century Christians in Egypt

Migration, violence, memory, and home-making are all central to the history of Christians living in Egypt, dating back to the first century. Now a minority, Coptic Christians today continue to live in the same land amongst religious tensions in a Muslim-majority society. Yet, despite the declining Christian population in Egypt, Saint Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai has stood tall for centuries, providing a sacred space for Egyptian and other Christians in the region. In this paper, I will examine the role of Saint Catherine’s Monastery as a sacred space for Christians in eighth century Egypt— following the Arab Muslim conquests in the seventh century, which signified the end of Byzantine Christian reign in the area— and also as a response to their experiences of destruction and loss. I will appeal to theories of material religion, as my primary questions are: What are the effects of the construction of Saint Catherine’s as a sacred space on the Christian community in eighth century Egypt? How did this sacred space interact with the experiences of migration, violence, memory, and home-making that Christians underwent in the eighth century? How is the Christian faith embodied in and around this monastery?

By approaching this paper through the lens of material and embodied religion, I find that Saint Catherine’s monastery is not a lifeless structure, but rather is a tangible testament to the vitality of Christians in Egypt who have faced centuries of persecution. The centuries of exchanges between the Bedouin Muslims who protect the Holy Monastery and the Greek Orthodox monks who inhabit it also provide a unique example of amicable interfaith relations, making Saint Catherine’s all the more important to discuss. [1] The paper will be built on my analysis of three key sources: the Ashtiname of Muhammad— the covenant in which the Prophet Muhammad declares Christians and those at the monastery to be “people of the book” who should be protected against religious persecution from Muslims—, photographs depicting the structure of the monastery as documented in Helen C. Evans’ and Bruce White’s Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai, Egypt: A Photographic Essay, and my interview with Father Justin—a Coptic priest who currently lives at the monastery. I will argue that Saint Catherine’s Monastery is a sacred space that has not only provided refuge for Christians, but has also provided opportunity for amicable interfaith relations within a religiously tense landscape.

Scholars in the last several decades have shifted from considering sacredness to be “a substantial phenomenon, waiting to be discovered by human beings” towards an understanding of sacredness as “a situational phenomenon, located in the nexus of human practices and social projects.”[2] I will frame my paper’s argument according to the latter conception of sacred space. With this foundation, I will analyze Saint Catherine’s, examining particularly what makes it sacred. Using the framework from scholars such as Lily Kong[3] and David Chidester, who argue that sacred spaces are created from a mixture of “poetic” and “political” dynamics,[4]  I will examine the “political” and “poetic” dynamics of this sacred space as it relates to interfaith relations and religious persecution, as both are significant to the field of Global Christianity.

In the first section of my paper, I will examine the history of Saint Catherine’s Monastery, which was constructed in the mid-sixth century[5] and is located in Sinai. It was constructed under the rule of Justinian I, in response to requests from the monks who, since the third century, had attempted to live a safe, monastic life near the holy site and away from Muslim persecutors of the faith.[6] Given the religious conflicts in the sixth century, Justinian I also ordered Arab Bedouin tribes to protect the monastery—which they continue to do today, despite their conversion to Islam in the seventh century—making this a remarkable instance of Christian-Muslim relations in Egypt.[7] Secondly, I will examine the Ashtiname of Muhammad, which was written on behalf of the monks at Saint Catherine’s Monastery.[8] A copy of the covenant even remains at the monastery today. Lastly, I will consider how the architecture and location of Saint Catherine’s contributes to its role as a refuge for Christians. By primarily drawing from my interview with Father Justin and from photos in Evans and White’s Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai, Egypt, I will examine how the physical structure of the monastery contributes to the memorialization of the hardships of Christians in eighth century Egypt, connecting modern day Coptic Christians to a legacy of resilient Christians who have come before them. Each of these topics contribute to the memorialization of the challenges Christians in Egypt have faced, as Saint Catherine’s mere presence is a reminder of the trials they have undergone as well as the faith they have maintained.

Bibliography

Alon-Mozes, Tal, Hadas Shadar, and Liat Vardi. “The Poetics and Politics of the Contemporary Sacred Place: Baba Sali’s Grave Estate in Netivot, Israel.” Buildings & Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum 16, no. 2 (2009): 73–85.

Atiya, Aziz S. “Monastery of St. Catherine and the Mount Sinai Expedition.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 96, no. 5 (October 1952): 578–86.

Chidester, David. “Space.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Study of Religion, 329–39. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.

Evans, Helen C., and Bruce White. Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai, Egypt: A Photographic Essay. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004.

Kong, Lily, and Orlando Woods. Religion and Space : Competition, Conflict and Violence in the Contemporary World. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.

Morrow, John Andrew. “The Prophet Muhammad and the Monks of Sinai.” In The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of the World, 65–98. Anglico Press, 2013.

[1] Evans and White, Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai, Egypt, 8.

[2] Alon-Mozes, Shadar, and Vardi, “The Poetics and Politics,” 74.

[3] Kong and Woods, Religion and Space.

[4] Chidester, “Space,” 37.

[5] Atiya, “Monastery of St. Catherine,” 578.

[6] Atiya, 578.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Morrow, “The Prophet Muhammad,” 11.