An official visit by Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty to Athens on Wednesday for talks with his Greek counterpart George Gerapetritis will, by all accounts, include the issue of the St. Catherine’s Monastery of Sinai.
An Egyptian appeals court decision nearly two months ago threatening the very existence of the history monastery as a Greek Orthodox institution abruptly sent shockwaves in otherwise strategic relations between Athens and Cairo.
Diplomatic sources in the Greek capital this week referred to a positive climate in negotiations between the two sides, as Athens more-or-less has assumed the role of primary interlocutor over the Sinai monastery’s status.
Among others, the monastic community wants to safeguard its possessions and estates in the Sinai Peninsula, especially the monastery compound – which includes its catholicos (main) cathedral, chapels, living quarters and its renowned library.
Besides the fate of the monastery, Athens is expected to focus on two crucial issues, namely, achieving more help by Cairo in preventing migrant boats from taking off eastern Libya for Greek territory, and deflecting what it considers as an illegal and baseless MoU between Turkey and the government in Tripoli to delimitate maritime borders.
Archbishop Damianos
The pending visit by Abdelatty comes amid an unprecedented internal upheaval within the monastic brotherhood at St. Catherine’s, considered the oldest continually operating Christian monastery in the world.
A group of monks at the monastery reportedly attempted to depose the Archbishop of Mount Sinai and Raithu and Hegumen (abbot) of the monastery, Damianos, and achieve recognition of the decision by Egyptian authorities – who refused.
Archbishop Damianos, on his part, conveyed an epistle to the Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos III strenuously condemning the action as “anti-canonical”, among many other criticisms.
Damianos has served as the abbot of the venerable monastery for 52 years.
