The Mount Sinai Monastery: A Successful Example of Shared Holy Space

ABSTRACT Mount Sinai had already been a site of the veneration of Moses for two centuries when Emperor Justinian founded a monastery on the site of the Burning Bush in the sixth century. Subsequently the site attracted worship from Muslims as well as Christians after the Arab conquest of Sinai, but although a mosque was built there the monastery remained protected under successive Muslim regimes. From the late twelfth century onward the monastery was also visited by western pilgrims, who identified Mount Sinai as the burial place of St Catherine, venerated her shrine and collected miraculous oil from her bones. Devotion to St Catherine eclipsed the biblical significance of the site in the medieval West, but by the end of the Middle Ages the Latin authorities were frustrated by the reluctance of the monks of Mount Sinai to recognize papal authority, and worship by Latins at the monastery became subject to restrictions.