One of the world’s most important Christian sites came under gun attack. The Greek Orthodox Monastery of St. Catherine, built over 1,500 years ago is one of Christianity’s holiest sites.
Gunmen opened fire on an Egyptian police checkpoint near the monastery killing one policeman and wounding four others. The gunmen then retreated and did not reach the monastery compound, which is heavily fortified and guarded by Egyptian police and security forces.
ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack via its news agency.
The attack on the monastery comes just over a week after suicide bombers attacked two Coptic Christian churches in the Nile Delta city of Tanta and the coastal city of Alexandria, killing 45 people on Palm Sunday.
According to the officials, the gunmen were shooting from an elevated hilltop overlooking the police checkpoint just outside the monastery, which is located in a remote desert and mountainous area in the southern part of the Sinai Peninsula, where, according to scripture, God spoke to the prophet Moses from a burning bush.
The Greek Orthodox monastery was a popular destination, primarily for Orthodox Christian pilgrims, but was closed to the public for security reasons in 2015, leaving only the monks and clergy inside the compound.
According to Orthodox Christian history, in the early 4th century, St. Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, built the Chapel of the Burning Bush at the site where Moses is supposed to have seen the miracle.
The fortified walls were built around the chapel by the Byzantine emperor Justinian (who also commissioned the Hagia Sophia) starting in 527. The Church of the Transfiguration was completed by Justinian’s workers in the 560s, around the time of his death.
In 2002, the area centering on St. Catherine’s Monastery was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO because of Mt. Sinai’s importance in three major world religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), the natural environment of the area and St. Catherine’s historic architecture and art.
5 comments
Anyone who destroys holy sides is evil. They do not come more evil than these Muslims calling themselves god’s people. They are pure evil unleashed Good will prevail when Jesus returns soon to destroy the Muslim race and bring back Christianity the true love of Christ.
Jesus is supposed to be the loving son of ‘God’ for all christians. The same God who is worshiped with quite a few different names by nearly EVERY other religion on this planet, as naturally also the ‘Muslim Race’, how you like to call Islamic HUMANS. How dare you lower Jesus Christ by even thinking he’d destroy the ‘Muslim Race’ (there is no such ‘race’ by the way)? Didn’t he say: who is without fault may throw the first stone? I (roman katholic) personally know many and am friends with very kind, honest, religious and tolerant muslims.
I prefer these people by far to a christian, whose bigottery and self-praise might do even more harm to Christianity in the end
According to Islamic Eschatology, Jesus will return and join the Muslims! He will descend with his arms resting on the wings of two angels, at the white Minaret of the great mosque (formerly church) of Damascus, Syria, where the head of his cousin John the Baptist is enshrined, just when the call to payer is made for the morning prayer, and he will join in the worship, WHICH IS SIMILAR TO HOW HE WORSHIPPED IN THE GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE, NOT HOW THE FOLLOWERS OF PAUL WORSHIP!
While I agree that anyone who kills for a religion are evil , I don’t believe other religions have it wrong….if we all respect and treat our neighbors kindly and respectful then we all succeed, each religion (differently worded maybe )have in them one thing that in commo ! “treat as you would like to be treated”!
The golden rule has been found in every religion by a theologist … refreshing and hopeful
Ww should be praying for those gunmen!
If Paul was alive today he would have been one of them!