Church of Sinai

The Church of Sinai is a Greek Orthodox autonomous Church whose territory consists of St. Catherine's Monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai in Egypt, along with several dependencies. There is a dispute on whether the Church is fully or merely autonomous. The Church is headed by the Archbishop of Mount Sinai and Raithu, who is traditionally consecrated by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem and also serves as abbot for the monastery. The current hierarch is His Beatitude, Archbishop Damian.

The Church of Sinai owes its existence to the Monastery of the Transfiguration (better known as St. Catherine's Monastery). The monastery's origins are traced back to the Chapel of the Burning Bush that Constantine the Great's mother, Helena, had built over the site where Moses is supposed to have seen the burning bush. Between 527 and 565, Emperor Justinian I ordered the monastery built to enclose the chapel. The monastery became associated with St. Catherine of Alexandria through the belief that her relics were miraculously transported there.

St. Catherine’s monastery, as it has been known since the 9th century, was originally part of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, within the diocese of Pharan. After the bishop of Pharan was deposed for the heresy of monotheletism in 681 AD, the see was transferred to the monastery itself, the abbot becoming the bishop of Pharan. With the subsequent union of the diocese of Raitho with the monastery, all the Christians in the Sinai peninsula came under the jurisdiction of the Abbot-Archbishop.

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