|
Published by
Parade Magazine,
May 15, 2005
The Monk Who Would
Give Us History |
 |
 |
By Bruce Feiler
The Sinai desert is one of the most barren
places on Earth. The wilderness where Moses led
the Israelites after the Exodus is a giant
peninsula wedged between Africa and Asia that is
sometimes referred to as 23,500 square miles of
nothing. Crossing into the Sinai recently on a
journey to revisit biblical sites, I was
reminded that Moses tells the Israelites that
God sent them into the wilderness to “learn what
is in your hearts.”
But at the southern tip, hundreds of miles from
civilization, comes unexpected relief: a
1700-year-old monastery that monks believe
contains the actual Burning Bush where Moses
heard the voice of God. Scholars dismiss the
bush as a curiosity, but recently they’ve begun
turning to its desert hideaway for a different
reason.
Today, St. Catherine’s Monastery is at the
center of a high-tech global effort to shore up
its priceless heritage—considered the second
most valuable collection of religious
manuscripts in the world, after that of the
Vatican—for the Internet Age. The unlikely
spearhead of that movement is a 56-year-old
native of El Paso, Tex., who was raised a
Baptist, converted to the Greek Orthodox Church
and nine years ago became the first American
monk in St. Catherine’s fabled history.
“It’s amazing to live in a place that is so
historical,” said Father Justin Sinaites (“of
Sinai”), “yet be involved in something so
modern. I can sit at my computer, look out my
window, and there’s Mount Sinai to my left, a
6th-century basilica to my right, and it’s 33
centuries between me and Moses.”
“It’s amazing,” says Father Justin, “to live
in a
place that’s so historical and be involved
in
something so modern.”
A soft-spoken man, Father Justin stands 6 feet
2, with flowing black robes that accentuate his
otherworldliness. His face is gaunt, with thin
round spectacles and a gnarled black beard
dusted with gray that seems like a piece of
Spanish moss. With deep-set eyes and a black
skullcap, he looks like a character out of
Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov.
Born into a family that worked in religious book
publishing, Father Justin developed a passion
for Byzantine history at the University of
Texas. At 22, he joined the Greek Orthodox
Church, which split from the Roman Catholic
Church in the 11th century, in part over the
authority of the Pope. Today the church has 250
million believers worldwide.
In 1974, Father Justin entered a monastery in
Brookline, Mass., where he supervised
publications. About 20 years later, determined
to draw closer to Byzantine history, he trekked
uninvited to St. Catherine’s and told the
archbishop he would like to become a member.
“He just gave me this icy look,” Father Justin
recalled. “Then that night he left for Greece.”
Three weeks later, the archbishop returned. “Now
that you’ve seen the monastery without
rose-colored spectacles,” he said, “do you still
want to become a member?” Father Justin said
“yes.”
One of the most spectacular compounds in the
Middle East, St. Catherine’s —named after a
martyred Egyptian saint—was founded in the 4th
century, based on a local tradition that said
the Burning Bush was located at the base of the
area’s second tallest mountain, Jebel Musa, or
Mount Moses. Though only one of dozens of
mountains labeled the actual spot where Moses
received the Ten Commandments, Jebel Musa became
known among pilgrims as “Mount Sinai” once the
monastery was built. Emperor Justinian expanded
the small monastic site in the 6th century,
surrounded it with granite walls 60 feet high
and built the basilica. Monks claim the
basilica’s doors are the oldest functioning ones
in existence and that they lead to the world’s
oldest continually operating monastery. Seven
services are held three times a day in Byzantine
Greek.
St. Catherine’s library contains 4570
manuscripts
(many illuminated), 7000 early printed books
and 6000 modern ones.
The monastery’s signature curio is an enormous
fountaining shrub, about 6 feet tall. Large
branches sprout from its center and dangle like
those of a weeping willow. The bush grows behind
the chapel, near a well that marks the spot
where Moses is said to have met his wife,
Zipporah. A fire extinguisher sits off to one
side. The first time I visited, I thought the
device was an eyesore, but then I realized the
unintended humor. Was this in case the Burning
Bush caught on fire?
Monks claim the plant is unique and has been
growing in the same spot since the time of
Moses, around 1300 B.C.E. Are they right? The
Bible does not give an exact location, and few
scholars these days engage in pinpointing
natural phenomena from the text, which many
consider passed down from oral tradition. Clues,
though, suggest that the bush is rare. It
belongs to the species Rubus sanctus, a kind of
wild raspberry that grows primarily in the
mountains of Central Asia and in the eastern
Mediterranean. Few specimens have been found in
the arid areas of the Middle East. As to
location, even the monks say the bush was moved
several hundred years ago to accommodate a new
chapel.
Does it matter to Father Justin if this is the
actual Burning Bush? “I believe what’s important
is not where the revelation happened but that it
happened,” he told me. “God said to Moses, ‘The
place whereon thou standest is holy ground.’ It
was the identification of that very place that
led the first hermits to settle here, and that
has been the focus of everything here since that
time.”
But even more than the grounds of St.
Catherine’s —which contain a refectory, a
handful of chapels, even a mosque built in the
12th century for local Muslims—the most precious
facility may be the library. It is here that
Father Justin has begun to bring the
millennium-and-a-half-old institution into the
21st century.
St. Catherine’s library contains 4570
manuscripts (many illuminated), 7000 early
printed books and 6000 modern ones. Texts
include some of the world’s oldest Bibles and
mint copies of the first printed editions of
Homer and Plato. The monastery’s most famous
manuscript was the Codex Sinaiticus, the oldest
complete Bible in existence, written in Greek in
the 4th century. It resided here for 1500 years,
until a German scholar “borrowed” it in 1844 for
copying, then sold it to Russia (43 leaves,
previously removed, remained in Germany). Russia
later sold most of it to the British Museum
library. A few leaves were found hidden in a
wall in St. Catherine’s and are on display there
in an archive designed by New York City’s
Metropolitan Museum of Art.
“Living here, you become intensely aware of
the
history of the area,” said Father Justin.
“You see
how many times the church came close to
being destroyed.... There’s been an amazing
continuity that defies all human
explanation. The only explanation is that
it’s a place protected by God.”
The rest of the manuscripts, though well
preserved by the dry climate, are largely
inaccessible to scholars. Documents that could
unlock precious clues to the birth of the Bible,
the rise of Christianity, the spread of
monotheism and the ability of this lone desert
monastery to survive in a hostile environment
have been seen by only a handful of people.
Father Justin came up with the idea of using
advanced digital technology to photograph the
collection and post it on the Internet. With a
grant of $50,000, he began shooting manuscripts
with a Swiss-made Sinar camera that can make
images of up to 75 million pixels. (Consumer
cameras typically shoot 4 million pixels.) He
uses lights that filter out ultraviolet rays and
a custom-made cradle so the manuscripts are not
unduly strained. “We have excellent equipment,”
he says, “and we are gratified at the assistance
we have received.” His funds are about to run
dry, however, putting the 10-year project at
risk.
But Father Justin seems to relish such
hurdles—and his dedication already has reaped
unimagined rewards. In March, the 25 monks of
St. Catherine’s elected him librarian, a
prestigious position giving him access to
manuscripts previously off-limits. And plans
have been drawn to reconstruct the library,
adding digital-conservation rooms. Also in
March, an agreement was signed to allow all
existing pages and fragments of the Codex
Sinaiticus to be photographed, in effect
reuniting the priceless manuscript
geographically in the monastery’s collection.
During a tour of the library, I asked Father
Justin if living in such a place had affected
his faith.
“Living here, you become intensely aware of the
history of the area,” he said. “You see how many
times the church came close to being destroyed,
how many times it came close to being abandoned.
There’s been an amazing continuity that defies
all human explanation. The only explanation is
that it’s a place protected by God.”
And what about his personal struggle to confront
the traditions of the monastery and to open its
gems to the world?
He smiled ruefully and pointed toward the summit
behind him. “I think the ascent of the mountain
is the perfect image for faith,” he said.
“Sometimes the ascent is very arduous, as every
pilgrim experiences climbing Mount Moses. But in
the midst of the labor, that is when we are
purified. That is why Moses remains a paradigm
for us all: because, as the Bible says of him,
‘And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as
a man speaketh unto his friend.’”
The Burning Bush Through The Ages
It is one of the most powerful scenes in the
Bible, resonating deeply through Jewish and
Christian iconography. Through a Burning Bush,
God reveals Himself to Moses and persuades him
to accept the mantle of leadership and deliver
His people from bondage in Egypt. Moses has been
tending the flocks of his father-in-law, Jethro,
when he comes to Horeb, “the mountain of God”
(later associated with Mount Sinai, the site of
the Ten Commandments). Suddenly, Moses beholds
an awesome sight—a bush is aflame yet “not
consumed.” The King James Bible continues: “God
called unto him out of the midst of the bush,
and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I.
And He said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy
shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon
thou standest is holy ground.’” (Exodus, iii,
4-5)
Artists through the centuries have sought to
depict the encounter of the lone man in the
wilderness with the Divine Presence, imbuing the
scene with imagery of their own time, geography
and beliefs.
PARADE Contributing Editor Bruce Feiler is the
author of “Walking the Bible” and “Abraham: A
Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths.” He has
been crisscrossing the Middle East, visiting
sites of biblical history that resonate in our
Western culture.
Bonus Online Content
In this week’s PARADE, contributing editor Bruce
Feiler brings us the inspiring story of Father
Justin and the St. Catherine’s Monastery in the
Sinai desert. Below is a short interview with
Father Justin about his digitization project of
St. Catherine’s priceless manuscripts and
documents:
PARADE:
Are there plans to put the manuscripts from the
St. Catherine’s library online?
Father Justin:
We are developing a Web site even now, which
will be available for peer review this year, and
which we hope to release to the public next
year.
Will the manuscripts be accessible on a St.
Catherine's Monastery Web site?
The manuscript Web site could be included as a
part of the larger Saint Catherine’s Monastery
Web site, but it will function as a separate
unit, with viewing aids designed specifically
for the study of the manuscripts. The monastery
Web site, which is being designed in Greece, may
be seen at the address:
www.sinaimonastery.org. It will
appear in Greek, English and Arabic. The Greek
site is being developed first.
Is there anything people can do to help the
digitzation project continue?
We have received funding to allow for the
implementation of the Web site, and for the
photography of the manuscripts with present
equipment. Additional funding would allow for
the expansion of our work. Also, we are planning
an ambitious reconstruction of the entire
library building, which is very much in need of
major improvements. This will only be possible
if we receive additional funds.
We would be very grateful for donations, which
can be sent to The Saint Catherine Foundation,
712 Fifth Avenue, Suite 9D, New York, N.Y.
10019. The Foundation is registered with the
IRS, and all donations are tax deductible.
|
