{"id":9346,"date":"2025-11-06T05:01:45","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T05:01:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=9346"},"modified":"2025-11-06T05:01:45","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T05:01:45","slug":"copts-oppose-egyptian-government-control-of-worlds-oldest-monastery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=9346","title":{"rendered":"Copts oppose Egyptian government control of world’s oldest monastery"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n St Catherine’s Monastery<\/span>\u00a0(Photo: Berthold Werner)<\/span><\/p>\n

An organisation that defends the rights of Coptic Christians in Egypt has called upon the international community to protect St Catherine\u2019s monastery.<\/p>\n

The historic site is the oldest continuously functioning monastery in the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rights group Coptic Solidarity also wants the appointment of Egypt’s former Minister of Antiquities as head of UNESCO to be reconsidered.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year an Egyptian court ruled that ownership of the land the monastery is built on – at the foot of Mt Sinai – be transferred to the Egyptian government.<\/p>\n

Coptic Solidarity is now warning that the Egyptian government may be on the verge of coming to an agreement that would transfer control of the 1,500-year-old monastery from the Brotherhood of Sinai Fathers to the Egyptian government. Greece, which has historically defended the rights of the monastery, is allegedly not opposing the deal.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Coptic Solidarity warned, \u201cSuch a move would strip the monastery of its self-governing status and bring it under Egyptian custodianship. Once this shift occurs, it cannot be undone \u2014 autonomy would give way to symbolism.\u201d<\/p>\n

The group also took issue with former antiquities minister, Dr Khaled El-Anany, who is due to take the head of UNESCO on 7 November. The group accuses Dr El-Anany of overseeing \u201cpolicies linked to the demolition of parts of Cairo\u2019s historic necropolis and large-scale tourism projects around St Catherine\u2019s \u2014 developments that permanently altered the site\u2019s character\u201d.<\/p>\n

Caroline Dross, President of Coptic Solidarity, said, \u201cIt is unacceptable that the same official who facilitated the destruction of protected heritage sites now seeks to lead the very institution charged with defending them.<\/p>\n

“This moment is a test of UNESCO\u2019s moral credibility \u2014 and of the international community\u2019s willingness to defend world heritage from political capture.\u201d<\/p>\n

As well as challenging the appointment of Dr El-Anany, Coptic Solidarity appealed to the Vatican, UNESCO, the EU, the US and other interested parties to uphold St Catherine\u2019s historic autonomy and to hold Egypt accountable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

St Catherine’s Monastery\u00a0(Photo: Berthold Werner) An organisation that defends the rights of Coptic Christians in Egypt has called upon the international community to protect St Catherine\u2019s monastery. The historic site is the oldest continuously functioning monastery in the world.\u00a0 Rights group Coptic Solidarity also wants the appointment of Egypt’s former Minister of Antiquities as head<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9347,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[1153,1150,1152,210,1154,414,1151,113],"class_list":["post-9346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-christian-living","tag-control","tag-copts","tag-egyptian","tag-government","tag-monastery","tag-oldest","tag-oppose","tag-worlds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}