The Ecumenical Patriarchate this week made known its “undivided support” for the long-time abbot of eastern Christendom’s most revered monastery, St. Catherine’s of Sinai, Archbishop Damianos, amid an unprecedented “mutiny” by roughly half of the brotherhood of monks at the monastery.

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I

The latter have demanded nonagenarian Damianos’ removal as the venerable monastery’s abbot, or hegumen, as the monastic title is known in Christian Orthodoxy. Conversely, Damianos has banished the opposing monks from the monastery’s compound and called on Egyptian authorities – and even the Greek state – to protect his person and position.

The “unbrotherly” spate comes amid an unprecedented threat to the very existence of the monastery and its holdings in the Sinai Peninsula from a recent Egyptian appeals court ruling.

During the convening of the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s Sacred and Holy Synod on Thursday, which was chaired by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, participating Metropolitans said the Church recognizes Damianos as the “legal and canonical Archbishop and Hegumen of the Holy Monastery of the Sinai.”

Archbishop of Sinai Damianos

An announcement by the Sacred Holy Synod also emphasizes that this position expresses the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople’s steadfast commitment to the status bestowed on the historic monastery for many centuries.