A bolt out of the blue on Mt Sinai

The study was stunning, that an Egyptian tribunal had ruled that the Monastery of St Catherine’s connected Mount Sinai, the oldest functioning Christian monastery, was to beryllium taken implicit by the state, its spot confiscated. Coinciding with Thursday’s sorrowful day of the autumn of Constantinople, this was capable to acceptable disconnected a firestorm successful Greek politics, connected websites and successful κοινωνικά media. Archbishop Ieronymos of Greece expressed his “limitless sorrow” and “justified rage,” while the authorities appeared taken aback. The authorities spokesman said that the premier curate “stands by the committedness that helium received successful nationalist and privately from the president of Egypt… for the attraction of the Greek Orthodox quality of the monastery and helium expects contiguous signing of the applicable statement arsenic formulated betwixt the parties.”

On May 7, successful Athens, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi had stressed astatine a associated quality league with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis: “I will not let the narration with Greece to beryllium jeopardized owed to the malicious rumors circulating astir St Catherine’s Monastery… I affirm the Egyptian state’s committedness to the eternal and intact declaration betwixt the monastery and the state.” Mitsotakis had thanked Sisi for his “personal interest” successful the “protection of the monastery and its Greek Orthodox nature.”

What happened within the space of three weeks? Did the Egyptian authorities alteration position? Did the tribunal take a determination that differed from the president’s will? Was the reportage connected the lawsuit accurate? Is it imaginable that what Sisi said successful Athens implied that the Egyptian authorities believes state power of the monastery will not violate the “eternal and intact contract” betwixt the two? The Greek Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson noted that “the governments of Greece and Egypt worked together systematically for an statement which will unafraid the ineffable Greek Orthodox quality of the region. We are expecting to person the determination that the Egyptian tribunal issued yesterday.” Whatever comes next, it is wide that the deficiency of coordination betwixt the two governments near country for large and justified interest astir the aboriginal of the unique, surviving monument that is St Catherine’s Monastery connected Mount Sinai.