When you enter it, it’s like leaving behind the time of the world and experiencing another rhythm of life. In the temple, where its walls have swallowed an uninterrupted 15 centuries prayer, there is a living energy that cannot be ignored.
Egypt Shipment: Zoritsa Raskovic
The monks, amid the recent difficulties of challenging the monastery’s regime, continue and further intensify the daily life of the monastery with the sequences and ministry of pilgrims and visitors. Because, in the end, if something needs to be rescued, it is not just a “Ark of Culture”; it is the living daily life of people who associate us with a proposal of life that has held centuries.
For the Sinai monks, the functional life of the monastery is not separated from his contribution to the locals and the need for survival, but they are a harmonious whole. As Archbishop Sinai Damianos said: “We make our own plans, but we have confidence in God’s plans, even when they are undiagnosed. Because the monastery is in Sinai for the good of the world with practical care for locals and visitors. And that is why we receive that God takes care of the monastery and offers solutions to the problems that arise over the centuries, so that the world can benefit from the monastery. “.
The Matsut Visit
The Monastery of St. Catherine chose to complete his visit to Egypt (17-21/6) by Serbian Prime Minister Jouro Matsut, with whom I worked as an interpreter. Egypt, like Greece, was part of its first bilateral visits after taking over the prime minister.
The Serbian prime minister, after being accepted by Gamal Mustafa, in charge of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, worshiped the relics of St. Catherine and showed great interest in the future of the monastery, after being informed of the difficulties of securing her legal status. It also showed particular interest in the monastery’s manuscripts in Glagolites, which are the oldest Slavic alphabet, linked to the mission of Saints Cyril and Methodius. He was also interested in the manuscripts associated with Saint Savva, founder of the Self -Serbian Church in the 13th century, which mark the beginnings of the spiritual life of the Serbs.
Handshake by Jouro Matsout (left) with the representative of South Sinai commander under the eyes of Archbishop Sinai Damianou – Photo: Slobodan Miljevic
The Sinai monk Justin toured Mr Machut in the treasures of the monastery, with the Serbian politician stressing that it was a universal heritage, which all the Orthodox countries need to cooperate.
The monk Justin is a rare form. A Texan origin, he discovered Sinai’s Orthodoxy and Spirituality through his personal pursuits and has been the monastery since the 1990s. As responsible for the Library, he has firmly facilitated the researchers and has worked with the Metropolitan Museum of the Museum of Museum and Metropolitan Museum. shine on the east and west coast of the US. With his tall figure and long beard, the monk moves intimacy between the walls and the stairs of the monastery, as if he was not walking but hovering.
Threat to two
The monks are always helped by the famous Bedouins of the Gambelia Tribe (Mountains). They are distant offspring of the soldiers from the Black Sea that Emperor Justinian as guards of the monastery in the 6th century. Over the centuries they have been Islamized, but have maintained their love for the monastery. Bedouin Joseph, who executes a driver’s debt, toured us in the wider area and explained the new challenges from excessive tourism development. Since 2021 Egypt has been promoting the “Great Transformation” plan for Sinai’s tourist exploitation. This development program is also disastrous for the Bedouin communities of Gambelia, the
who live in harmony with the monks, accepting care services. Bedouins are at risk of losing their ancestral territories and being assimilated into a kind of urban tourism, in which they are completely foreign. Joseph often repeats that the monks have lived in the place for 15 centuries in harmony with the Bedouins. Now the lifestyle of both is in danger. In addition, the Plan of Tourism Development does not recognize a privileged character in the Greek Orthodox community, but considers Sinai a crossroads of the “Abrahamian” religions of the Bible. Today, tourist facilities have surrounded a stranglehold, while a new impetus to tourism development will be given by the new South Sinai airport that is expected to be ready within 4 months.
Constant checks
On the way to Sharm El Sheikh Airport we need to stop very often in controls. Bedouin Joseph, learned in the process, constantly complements the documents with the details of the driver, the vehicle and the passengers. The security certificate offered by Egyptian soldiers, who are willing to help with anything needed, is mixed with a sense of suffocating surveillance by the Egyptian state.
Sinai’s peninsula is, after all, very important for Egypt, who wants a revision of Camp David (1978) agreements in the direction of the greatest presence of the Egyptian army in the area with lifting or degrading existing restrictions.
Another ‘Exit’
The peninsula has, in fact, renewed geopolitical significance. At Sharm El Sheikh Airport we meet many Israelis, who had fled to Egypt during the throwing ballistic missiles from Iran to Israel. On the journey from Sharm El Sheikh to Cairo and from there to Athens, Mrs Orit, who tells me her story, accompanies me.
He waited for six days at the border between Israel and Egypt on a valuable escape route from the dangers of bombings. It described us a sense of trapping and its purpose to go to Athens and finally to Crete, where a community of Israeli has developed around Chania. Mrs Orit said she was prepared for the new adventures of her life and considers Greece as a way out through Egypt.
The Sinai Monastery is linked to the biblical form of Moses, who led the Jewish people to “Exodus” from Egypt to the “land of the profession”. Today, however, for many Jews the march is reverse, from Israel to Egypt and often to Greece. But also for pilgrims and visitors to Sinai, the “Monastery of Transfiguration” is now in danger of the secular “great transformation” of tourism that is indifferent to traditional centuries.
* Mrs. Zoritsa Raskovic is an archaeologist.
