The huge project in Sinai under attack – claims of massive destruction

In the high desert where Judaism, Christianity and Islam all remember the story of Moses facing God, a new and noisy sound is heard that breaks the holy silence: the noise of excavations and non-stop construction machines. Egypt’s massive, nearly $300 million tourism venture known as the St. Catherine Revelation, which aims to turn the remote mountain town of St. Catherine into a global tourist destination, is changing the landscape at breakneck speed. For the locals, heritage experts and custodians of the world’s oldest active Christian monastery, the project poses a serious threat to the culture, ecology and history that spans more than 1,600 years.

The area of ​​St. Catherine, recognized by UNESCO for its exceptional value, combines extraordinary natural beauty and sacred heritage. The rock formations, the desert vegetation and the sacred sites create a landscape that has been preserved almost unchanged since ancient times. Within this landscape stands the monastery of St. Catherine, a site revered by all religions, and around it lives the Jabaliya Bedouin community, whose roots are attributed to Roman soldiers who guarded the holy monastery.

But the locals claim that this delicate balance is collapsing. A veteran Bedouin guide told how a look at a new five-star hotel above the valley revealed a view that disrupted the natural silence, with the noise of construction machinery drowning out the chirping of birds. The holy town is now becoming a hub of hotels, convention centers and residential buildings. Heritage experts warn that the project causes irreversible damage to both the nature reserve and the unique historical landscape of the area. John Granger, former director of the EU conservation project in Santa Catarina, describes the move as a “distortion and destruction of the site”.

The concern came to a head in July, when the World Heritage Watch organization demanded that UNESCO declare the area a World Heritage Site in Danger. UNESCO has already asked Egypt in 2023 to stop new projects pending an environmental and cultural impact assessment. Despite this, construction continued and the state announced that the project was already 90 percent complete. The Egyptian authorities claim that the project will bring economic growth, employment and essential infrastructure. But local leaders claim that they have been ignored, and many fear that the development mainly serves outside investors and neglects the needs of communities that have been marginalized for years.

At the center of the dispute is the Monastery of Santa Caterina, which is considered the oldest active Christian monastery in the world. The monastery, built between 527-565 AD by order of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I, was built to protect the Church of the Burning Bush, a site believed to be where Moses spoke to God. For hundreds of years the monastery served as a place of spirituality, learning and cooperation between cultures.

The monastery’s cultural heritage is vast, and it contains some of the earliest artefacts, including a sixth-century painting of the figure of Christ Pantocrator, believed to be the oldest existing painting of Christ, with an asymmetrical style reminiscent of the Egyptian Fayum portraits. The monastery also maintains one of the world’s largest collections of Byzantine manuscripts, more than 3,000 codices, some of which are decorated with magnificent paintings. The manuscripts bear witness to the Byzantine intellectual life and the monastery’s relations with emperors, patriarchs and authorities for centuries.

Santa Caterina has benefited over the years from inter-religious protection and protection. According to tradition, Muhammad gave the monastery a document of protection that guaranteed its safety after the rise of Islam in Egypt. Napoleon also recognized the monastery’s rights, and even ordered the restoration of the northern wall after an earthquake in 1798. For 1,400 years the monastery survived invasions, political instability and natural disasters almost intact. Today, however, the monastery and the community around it are facing a challenge that has never existed in its long history.

The Egyptian court ruled that the monastery is built on land owned by the state and that the Greek Orthodox monks are only entitled to “use it”. Critics of the decision claim that it harms the historical independence of the monastery and places its future in the hands of the authorities. This decision caused diplomatic tensions with Greece and a storm began among the Orthodox patriarchies of the world.

The tension also spread within the affairs of the monastery, and in September the archbishop of Santa Caterina resigned. According to sources, he did this following an unprecedented internal rebellion among the monks. However, the monastic community continues to open its doors daily to pilgrims, travelers and visitors, many of them accompanied by members of the Jabaliya tribe, who have served as guardians and guides of the monastery for over 1,500 years. For those Bedouins, the project brought with it unprecedented disruption, and the tribe, which for many years was excluded from national plans, saw its land, homes and even its cemeteries taken for the new tourism vision.

In 2022, bulldozers destroyed the community’s ancient cemetery without warning, forcing families to remove hundreds of bodies. The site has since become a parking lot, with the residents later telling about the demolition of houses, sudden evictions and compensation provided by the state which is not sufficient at all. One of the locals, seventy years old, notes that “half of my house was destroyed”.

Many of the residents fear that their city may quickly turn into an ornate resort for affluent tourists from around the world. With rising housing prices and development aimed mainly at wealthy tourists, the Bedouins fear that the place where their ancestors lived for 1,500 years may disappear. “No one knows what will happen tomorrow,” says a local guide. “Maybe they will tell us to evacuate, that we don’t have any more room.”

The project also causes concern among environmentalists, who claim that it harms the delicate ecology of the nature reserve in South Sinai. Ancient orchards cultivated by the monks, rare species of desert plants and vulnerable mountain ecosystems need extensive protection. “These hotels are huge, the costs are astronomical. Will they be full? That’s the real problem. But it’s impossible to say,” says a resident. For the monks, the Jabaliya Bedouins and millions of believers around the world, the question is whether the holy landscape will be able to withstand the pressures of a large-scale tourism project. The answer may decide not only the future of Santa Catarina, but also the integrity of the local human heritage that has survived there for almost two thousand years.