St. Catherine's Monastery, Sinai

Santa Katarina is the oldest monastery in the Christian world, built in the 6th century on the orders of Emperor Justinian. Among other marvels it contains the world's oldest wooden roof truss. Within the walls is a small chapel built by Saint Helen, Emperor Constantine's mother, in 330 CE. According to the monastery's web site, it's original name was The Holy Monastery of the God-trodden Mount Sinai. The association with Saint Catherine came about like this:

Saint Catherine was born in Alexandria towards the end of the third century, and was educated in philosophy, rhetoric, poetry, music, mathematics, astronomy, and medicine. She was renowned for her beauty, her aristocratic birth, and her wide learning. Rejecting all offers of marriage, she was converted to Christianity through a Christian hermit who lived in the outlying deserts, and took Christ as the true Bridegroom of her soul. During the persecutions of Maxentius in the early fourth century, she confessed her faith in Christ and condemned the worship of idols. The emperor appointed fifty rhetoricians to argue with her, but her presentation of Christianity was so brilliant, and her condemnation of the pagan religion so devastating, that they were themselves converted to Christ. Saint Catherine resisted all the emperor’s promises, threatenings, and tortures, and was at last beheaded for her faith. 

Following her martyrdom, angels bore her body to the peak of Mount Saint Catherine, where they rested until they were translated to the catholicon of the Holy Monastery of Sinai. Here they continue to emit a sweet fragrance, and many miracles are wrought to this day. The veneration of Saint Catherine spread throughout the West, especially after the translation of relics of Saint Catherine to Rouen by Symeon Pentaglosses, in the early eleventh century. The numerous pilgrims to the monastery from that time resulted in the gradual change of name from the Holy Monastery of Sinai to that of Saint Catherine’s Monastery.

Quite an entrepreneur, that Symeon Pentaglosses.

Skeptics doubt that this Saint Catherine ever existed, but they would, wouldn't they? Above, the bell tower.

Medieval icon of the monastery.

The monastery was built on the spot where Moses is supposed to have seen the burning bush. This, St. Catherine's Bush, is said to be a descendant of the bush venerated by the first hermits on the site, around 300 CE. Which in turn was supposed to be a descendant of the bush that burned for Moses.

The mosaic of Christ's transfiguration in the main church, circa 550.

The monastery is nearly 1500 years old but it has not been sacked once, or even attacked by an iconoclastic mob. Thus it contains an amazing library and some of the oldest icons in the world. The Codex Sinaiticus, discovered in the monastery in 1824, is a nearly complete text of the Bible dating to the fourth century; this was stolen by the Russians, but the monastery still holds the even older Syriac Sinaiticus, a palimpsest containing some of the oldest New Testament passages. Above is the oldest surviving painting of Mary enthroned, dating to the sixth century.

Ladder of Divine Ascent, 12th century.

Archangel Michael, 13th century.

The Holy Doors.