The Monastery of St. Catherine’s and Red Sea

The Monastery of St. Catherine’s -> Nuewiba (Red Sea)

We started our day early to visit the Monastery of St Catherine’s, the smallest diocese and oldest Christian monastery still in use in the world, which we passed by yesterday when we hiked up Mount Sinai. Dress code was stricter in the Monastery, which women and men should wear long pants. Since they only open around 3 hours a day for tourists, so it was very crowded when we were there at 9am.

Before talking about the experience of going through the monastery, here is a little history lesson. According to the travel book and our guide, St. Catherine’s church was named after Saint Catherine in the 10th century. Saint Catherine was born in AD 294 and was from a noble family in Alexandria, was a Christian convert who was martyred in the early 4th century for refusing to renounce her faith. She herself converted hundreds of people to Christianity and accused Emperor Maxentius of idolatry. When he tried to have her broken it was claimed that she shattered the spiked (Catherine) wheel by touching it, so Maxentius resorted to having her beheaded in Alexandria. After her execution her body vanished and according to legend was transported by angels to the top of Egypt’s highest mountain, now named after her. Three centuries later this body was discovered, brought down from the mountain and placed in a golden casket in the church where it remains to this day.


After entering to the monastery, we passed by the Moses’ Well, which was the main water source of the monastery. Then we arrived at St. Catherine’s Church, it was built between AD 542 and 551. This church was richly decorated with hanging oil lanterns, mosaic, icons, and swinging incense burners by Greek monks. It has 12 enormous pillars, each a single piece of granite, was free-standing and decorated with beautiful icons representing the saints that are venerated in each of the 12 months of the year.


Stepping out from the church, you would see the burning bush. According to the Bible, God spoke to Moses through the burning bush. Our guide said people tried to break that bush into pieces and grew in different countries, and St. Catherine’s is the only place they can grow out the burning bush. The picture attached might be too hard to see the color of the bush, but the top half was green and the bottom half was brown, like burnt color.


Bell Tower was built in 1871, the tower houses nine bells donated by Tsar Alexander II of Russia. They are only rung on religious festivals.


We then took a 2 hours bus ride to our beach getaway near Nuewiba for a night of relaxation. Mr. S and I immediately changed to our swimming gear to enjoy some time in the Red Sea. We did snorkeling, and swam around the sea at the resort that we stayed at. It is our most relaxing time during the whole trip. At night, we have our last dinner with our Egyptian tour guide because we will be heading to Jordan tomorrow!