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Article: Saint Catherine's Monastery
- Article from:
- Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa
- Author:
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SAINT CATHERINE'S MONASTERY
monastic complex in the sinai peninsula begun in the fourth century.
Saint Catherine's monastery sits near the foot of "God-trodden" Mount Sinai (Jabal Musa) in the middle of Egypt's southern Sinai Peninsula. In the mid-200s Christian hermits began to gather around the place where they believed God had spoken to Moses in the burning bush (Exodus 3:2
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6). In 337 Helena, mother of Byzantine Emperor Constantine I, ordered the building of a small church and tower on that spot.
In 551 Emperor Justinian commissioned his favorite architect Stephanus of Ailae to erect high enclosure walls and to build a large church with monks' dwellings and gardens. In the ...