ST CATHERINE'S MONASTERY
We finally arrived at St Catherine's Monestary after a long drive. We got out of the van and walked the fourth of a mile to the monestary. On the way we passed the gardens where the monks grow almonds, oranges, lemons, dates, apricots and grapes. This place is an oasis in the midst of a barren desert.
The monastery is full of Byzantine art.
St Catherine's Monastery has stood in its present location for fifteen centuries. The fortress-like monastery has walls of granite with crosses and lambs etched into them. The monestary sits at the base of a mountain range. The tall mountain near the monestary is called Mt. ST. Catherine. Mt Sinai in on the other side of it and is not as tall.
In the early days of Christianity a daughter of the king of Alexandria was converted to the new religion and tried to convert him. She was thrown into prison and was visited by the Savior. Her father had her head cut off. According to legend angels carried her body off to the top of a mountain. For two centuries no one knew where the body was. Later a monk had a dream of where the body was laid. The next day he went to a mountain and found the body. Later that day he and some other monks brought the body down from the mountain and put it in a coffin with a silver lid and placed it near the altar in the chapel where it now recieves homage from pilgrims who pass through the area.

The monestary looks like a fortress with its high stone walls and a turret on each corner. In more hostile times the walls used to be mounted with canons. The walls form irregular quadrangles of one hundred and thirty paces on either side. The building was erected by Empress Helena the mother of the Emperor Constantine. She came to the area in search of holy places mentioned in scripture. She had a dream one night that this area was where Moses led the children of Isreal in their exodus from Egypt and where Mt. Sinai was so she had a chapel built on that spot.

The exterior of the monestary is simple. The old entrance is a small door in the wall thirty feet from the ground. This can be seen in the picture above. In the olden days a rope was let down and people and supplies were hoisted up. Now there is a low doorway at ground level cut into the stone wall. The interior of the monestary is a complex network of verandas, galleries, porticos, stairways, cells for monks, rooms for guests, a library, a mosque, a minaret, a gallery, a church and chapels. In all there are twenty four chapels to different saints. Prayers are said in these in regular rotation. The heart of the whole complex is the Greek church. In the front near the altar is a coffin in rich design and has a silver lid. In the coffin are the bones of St. Catherine. Not far from that is the small chapel of the Burning Bush. The floors and steps are made of marble. The pillars and columns were made by ancient artisans plundered from heathen temples.