Local authorities decided to close down the Saint Catherine Monastery in the Sinai Peninsula, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, on January 5 and January 6, when Christmas church services are held according to the Coptic Orthodox calendar. The general directorate of tourist police further ordered all tourist companies not to lead tours to the historic monastery.
Although the official reason for temporarily closing down the building and canceling Christmas is due to the establishment of a plan for the development of the surrounding area as befits a World Heritage Site, it is believed that the order came as a precautionary safeguard against Islamic terrorists targeting the site and any foreign tourists visiting it during the Christmas holiday.
Built in the mid-sixth century, the Saint Catherine Monastery is one of the oldest monasteries in the world; additionally, it has the oldest continuously operating library in existence, with many precious manuscripts.
Although surrounded by high, thick walls, the Christian site has increasingly come under terror threats, particularly as the Sinai Peninsula is a hotbed of jihadi activity, where Coptic Christians are openly persecuted and sometimes slaughtered.
The monastery was targeted last April, when unknown gunmen opened fire on an Egyptian police checkpoint guarding it, killing one policeman and wounding four. The Islamic State later claimed the attack.
RichardL says
Christianity will be wiped out in the ME and NA.
The Sinia, especially the central and northern parts are held firmly by the IS.
abu salma says
so why do you think Christianity is being wiped out while Islam is being embraced by Europe/USA?
RichardL says
Because islam is pure evil and Christians are lambs and confuse allah with God.
Muslims give in to their animalistic instincts like their pedophile warlord muhammad.
Billy Chickens says
Because people love evil more than they do God.
Peter says
Small correction: St. Catherine’s is a Greek Orthodox Monastery. It is not Coptic.
christianblood says
RichardL posted
(..Christianity will be wiped out in the ME and NA..)
It is already wiped out in Iraq and Libya and in a lesser extent in Syria and it is being done with the support of the US and Nato who are always, in one way or another, directly or in directly supporting of various kinds of islamic jihadists and islamic terrorist groups. To give you an example, there was NO Christian Mass celebrated in Iraqi churches for the first time in 1800 years! And tens of thousands of Bosnian Christians are leaving Bosnia every year because of islamic persecution there and the situation is worse even in Kosovo and Metohia for Christians there all of it because US and Nato’s support for the islamic jihadists in the Balkan wars in which they (US and Nato) bombed the Christian Serbs and backed the islamic jihadists there and created two islamic states (Bosnia & Kosovo) in Eastern Europe. So, US and Nato have a huge hand in the extermination of Christians in the ME and in other parts of the islamic world.
gravenimage says
Notice that Christianblood has not a word of criticism for Islam. He sure does hate the West, though.
christianblood says
gravenimage
Every single thing I said in my comment above and in fact all my comments are objectively-observed factual truths that cannot be refuted so instead of cheap point-scoring and personal attacks and baseless accusations let us deal with facts. Right?
MFritz says
The day will come when all Christians have left Egypt. And then the “House of Allah” will bring eternal peace to the population… NOT.
Transmaster says
Google Books, in partnership with Project Gutenberg, has digitized most of the library of St Catherine’s. Efforts are ongoing to restore and scan in what remains. Cataloging what is there has been a real nightmare.
Eur says
It’s a pity that people can not be saved by making copies of them. Muslims are going to exterminate all living beings that they consider “kfir”.
StellaSaidSo says
Let’s not give up, Eur. They have been trying for 1400 years and we’re still here.
mortimer says
Yes, Stella. We shall NEVER SURRENDER!!
Eur says
For 1400 years the birth rate has been similar and they couldn’t come here. Today, western couples suffer to pay for a house and only consider having one or two children when they approach their forties, before it is impossible if they want to pay the mortgage, develop a professional career … Muslims have children from At twenty, they have an average of five children per couple … the ratio is not 5 to 1, it is 10 to 1 … minimum. You only have to see cities such as Marseille, one of the main French cities .. half of the population is of Maghrebi origin. They do not care about tomorrow, they have children without measure, without family planning, without the girls having the freedom to choose another life besides being mothers and praying five times a day. they continue to come en masse from the Maghreb … By simple demography muslims will impose themselves, our civilization is doomed.
John Stefan Obeda says
God bless us with faithfulness to the truth and with courage to spread it and then with love toward the Truth, i.e. the Lord Jesus be willing to die for the truth, if necessary, as many have in the past and many are dying now. God help us to do what’s right: tell the Muslim the saving Gospel message, but, if he comes toward me to kill me and my family, God, help me then to kill him first. I hope that I have the right attitude.
St. Manuel Palaiologos says
I’m pretty sure St. Catherine’s is Greek Orthodox, not Coptic Orthodox.
mortimer says
Coptic Christians can expect to be SLAUGHTERED LIKE SHEEP every Christmas and Easter at the time of holiest Christian celebrations. Muslims HATE the Incarnation which states “IMMANU-EL” (God with us)and they HATE the cross which is the symbol of self-sacrificing love.
Hate appears many more times in the Koran than the word ‘love’ and Islamic love omits 80% of humanity who are DIRTY KAFIRS that Muslims are obliged to HATE ‘for the sake of Allah’.
Yohanan says
The Codex Sinaiticus, a 5th century Greek manuscripts of Christian Bible (Old and New Testaments) was in parts bought or “stolen” from this same St. Katherina Monastery in the mid-19th century.
Wiki tells the history how the largest part was transported by the German Biblical scholar Constantin von Tischendorf acting for Tsar Alexander II of Russia. In 1933, the Soviet Union sold the codex to the British Museum. Today it is on public display at the British Library, St. Pancras, London. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Sinaiticus#Discovery
See the text and Codex at http://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/
On the monastery, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Catherine%27s_Monastery
BTW Wiki currently states that “… Greek Orthodoxy is a term referring to the body of several Churches within the larger communion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity…”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Orthodox_Church
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Orthodox_Church
Prabh108 says
Islam is fundamentally flawed from a point of view of logic. Sooner or later this ‘religion’ will collapse.
Abbisid says
Need to get all the texts copied before another burning.
Blangwort says
I am concerned about a “mysterious fire” there too. I have visited this monastery many years ago. They are peaceful people who simply want to be left alone to their scholarship.
But as long as the Islamists go raging through the Sinai, there will be no peace.
May God have mercy on their souls, for I know that there won’t be much mercy to be found for them on this Earth.
gravenimage says
Ancient Egyptian monastery closed and Christmas canceled
………………………
Here’s an ugly bit of history–it was St. Catherine’s Monastery that, in desperation, forged a covenant of protection they claimed to have received from the “Prophet” Muhammad himself. (this is also known as the “Ashtiname of Muhammad”).
This was obviously done up centuries after the fact–Muhammad never visited the Sinai, and the original document was conveniently “lost”. The supposed copy is full of anachronisms.
Please note: I do *not* blame the monks for using whatever methods they could to try to survive.
The reason I bring this up is that this is now brought up all the time by Taqiyya-spewing Muslims to the West, to convince us how enlightened the “Prophet” and his followers are in offering “protection” to Infidels.
Here’s one typical load of crap, from the laughably named “Muslims for Peace”:
http://www.muslimsforpeace.org/holy_prophet/the-covenant/
And this monastery is, clearly, *still* under threat from Muslims.
Flavius Claudius Iulianus says
http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2018/01/08/qaddafi-son-saif-al-islam-launches-presidential-bid-in-libya/
Sepp says
Several earlier comments referred to the uses of two calendars – the Julian and the Gregorian.
Interested readers might take time to learn more about the Calendar Controversy within the Orthodox Church by visiting the following link at the Orthodox Christian Information Center.
http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/ea_calendar.aspx
gravenimage says
I was not citing it as a controversy, Sepp–just as an explanation for the different dates.
Sepp says
The Monastery of Saint Catherine has an extensive project in retrieving text from palimpsests.
The following link is to the Sinai Palimpsests Project:
http://www.sinaipalimpsests.org
Eur says
Does anyone know how to get in touch with the monastery? I would like to send them a hug and all my love. I wish there was an initiative to express our support.
Ahem says
That would be about as useful as sending them teddy bears and lighting a few candles.
Islam will not be defeated by “love”, however you want to define it.
Eventually, the civilized people of Earth must act to expunge this stain of disgrace known as Islam from planet Earth by force and violence.
I speak as a non loony, leftist atheist, on this matter.
gravenimage says
Knowing that people outside Egypt support them is not a bad thing.
Eur, I did a little research, and here is how to contact them:
http://www.sinaimonastery.com/index.php/en/the-pilgrimage/contact-the-monastery
This website is in English, so they likely can either read English or else have translation software.
I don’t know if their email is being monitored by the Egyptians, but I think you have to assume that it might be.
So–if you offer support, please be general and avoid direct criticism of the Egyptian authorities or of Islam. Yes, this is disgusting–but the last thing you want is to make these good people’s lives even more difficult.
That’s what I’m going to do.
CRUSADER says
“RISEN” the movie, inspires for the growth of Christianity.
Deals with the story of a robust Christ Jesus, and the Roman tribune who paid tribute to him….