Greece, Egypt agree future of Mount Sinai monastery, Mitsotakis says

A wide view of St Catherine’s Monastery successful south Sinai, Egypt, March 7, 2019. [Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters]

A woody has been reached with Egypt connected the aboriginal of St Catherine’s Monastery, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has told MPs.

The status of the monastery, astatine the ft of Egypt’s Mount Sinai, 1 of the world’s oldest sites of Christian worship, had led to a diplomatic spat with Cairo.

Athens had expressed interest astir plans by Egypt to make a tourism task astir the site, where by Biblical tradition Moses received the Ten Commandments. The UNESCO World Heritage Site is still houses Greek Orthodox monks.

Earlier this year, an Egyptian tribunal ruling ordered the monks to vacate respective plots of onshore and worship facilities that monks person used for centuries, connected the grounds that they were illegally sequestered.

But aft negotiations, Greece and Egypt person finalized an retired of tribunal woody that will beryllium signed by the enactment of the monastery and the Egyptian authorities, according to Mitsotakis and diplomats.

“It guarantees the quality of the monastery successful perpetuity,” Mitsotakis said during a speech successful parliament.

“Any conversion of the monastery arsenic well arsenic of the different places of worship is prohibited.”

A elder Foreign Ministry authoritative successful Athens said that the woody will beryllium signed successful the coming weeks.

Egyptian officials did not instantly respond to a petition for comment.

The St Catherine’s Monastery, astatine the ft of Mount Sinai, was founded successful the 6th period and is the oldest Christian monastery still successful use for its archetypal function, says UNESCO.

Its room is 1 of the astir extended worldwide, containing some of the world’s earliest Christian manuscripts. [Reuters]