The “specter” hanging over the historic St. Catherine’s of the Sinai – the world’s oldest continuously inhabited Christian monastery – over its very existence following a controversial Egyptian appeals court ruling last June was further exasperated this week with an uncharacteristic and “unbrotherly” clash between its long-time abbot and a dissenting group of monks.

The latest incident came this week when the nonagenarian Damianos, the Archbishop of Mount Sinai and Raithu, the ecclesiastical title held by the abbot (hegumen) of the venerable monastery, arrived at the south Sinai monastery compound and was again confronted by the same group of monks that a few weeks ago demanded that he be deposed.

Archbishop of Sinai, His Eminence Damianos, the Hegumen of the St. Catherine’s of Sinai Monastery.

Damianos, 90, was elected and has served as the abbot of the monastery since 1974.

After the confrontation, Damianos called on Egyptian, but also on Greek authorities to “protect him”, while he issued a lengthy statement rebuking the 10 monks he said have opposed him in a “non-canonical and insubordinate” manner.

He also stated that upon arriving at the remote monastery compound on Tuesday evening he faced “an attack by putschist monks … who attempted to take over the place.”

The Archbishop of Sinai – an ecclesiastical jurisdiction established with the monastery as its core – said the monks who remain faithful to him and the Bedouin guards of the monastery eventually removed the opposing group, “allowing the monastery to return to legality and canonical rule”.

Conversely, the group of monks ostensibly opposing Damianos has accused him of being an “absentee hegumen”, as ill health has reportedly kept him in Athens for most of year and distant from the massive provocation faced by the monastery vis-a-vis the challenges by the Egyptian state.

The acrimonious “split” between the monastery’s brotherhood is considered as unprecedented in the modern era as essentially as a “blemish” on its millennia and a half existence.

An appeals court in the Egyptian city of Ismailia last June cast doubt on the monastery’s possession and ownership of its main compound, which hosts its main cathedral (catholicos), the monks’ quarters, chapels and its renowned library, as well as other estates on the Sinai Peninsula. The development caused shock in the Christian Orthodox world and sparked a diplomatic flurry between Greece and the Egyptian government, as Athens considers St. Catherine’s of the Sinai as a pre-eminent Greek Orthodox institution.