By: Maria Varas
For centuries, Saint Catherine’s Monastery existed in isolation from the rest of the world in the Sinai Peninsula. Since the Monastery’s 6th-century founding by Byzantine Emperor Justinian I, Greek Orthodox monks have congregated to pray at the site where it is said that Moses spoke to God on behalf of the Israelites and received the Ten Commandments.
Now, the Monastery is in the crosshairs of the Egyptian government’s new $200 million Great Transfiguration Project, which seeks to develop luxury hotels, shopping centers, theaters, and a new residential area surrounding the religious site to drive tourism to the area. The Project has already destroyed various natural landscapes, and observers are concerned that Egypt’s lack of coordination with the United Nations on this project will continue that environmental degradation and impact the groups that live at the Monastery.
In 2002, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) granted Saint Catherine’s Monastery and its surrounding area on Mount Sinai (also known as Mount Horeb) World Heritage status for its sacred significance to Christianity, Judaism, and Islam; its Byzantine architecture and integration with the rugged and remote landscape; its remoteness and relationship between “natural grandeur and spiritual commitment”; and for being the oldest Christian monastery in continuous function. The Monastery houses an impressive collection of early Christian manuscripts and icons, including the Codex Sinaiticus (the oldest complete copy of the New Testament) and the Christ Pantocrator icon.
UNESCO’s World Heritage Project reflects a desire among UN member states to create a coherent strategy to safeguard major cultural and natural sites of universal value. The corresponding 1972 Convention calls upon member States to recognize that protected sites constitute a “world heritage for whose protection it is the duty of the international community as a whole to co-operate.” Article 4 of the Convention places a duty on each State with a protected site to “ensur[e] the identification, protection, conservation, presentation and transmission to future generations of the [site’s] cultural and natural heritage… [The State] will do all it can to this end, to the utmost of its own resources and, where appropriate, with any international assistance and co-operation.”
These duties, underlined by the UN, have now become relevant with Egypt’s plans for Saint Catherine’s Monastery. In a 2023 report, UNESCO called on Egypt to halt construction to allow a Heritage Impact Assessment of the site. In 2025, it was reported that construction did not halt, and now the Project is close to completion with an opening date set for Fall 2026. UNESCO’s main concerns are that the site’s Outstanding Universal Values, the rugged natural environment, and the property’s remoteness will be impacted by the Project if not carefully accounted for.
The Egyptian government’s Great Transfiguration Project comes in the midst of the country’s current efforts to revitalize tourism, with a goal of reaching 30 million visitors by 2028. For example, the Grand Egyptian Museum recently opened near the tourist-heavy Pyramids of Giza, marking it as the world’s largest archaeological museum dedicated to a single civilization. Egypt’s plans for Mount Sinai seek to stimulate spiritual visitation to an area that is currently difficult for the average tourist to reach, except for the ardent faithful. Egypt’s Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouli expressed that Egypt’s intentions with the Project are to present Saint Catherine and Mount Sinai as a “gift to the entire world and all religions.”
However, Egypt’s Great Transfiguration Project surrounding Mount Sinai has been met with immense controversy from nearby Indigenous groups, the Greek Orthodox Church, and environmental and heritage-site advocates.
For example, World Heritage Watch has called the Project alarming, claiming that Egypt is in clear defiance of its own environmental laws. Egypt’s 1983 Law on Natural Protected Areas (under which Saint Catherine is classified as a protected area) forbids actions that will lead to the destruction or deterioration of the protected area’s natural environment, harm the biota, or detract from the area’s aesthetic standards, such as erecting buildings or paving roads, except with the permission of the country’s relevant Administrative Body.
One group that has seen the environmental changes firsthand and has been impacted by them is the Jebeleya tribe, a Bedouin community that has marked itself as the Guardians of Saint Catherine. The Jebeleya people are descendants of the initial Roman guards sent by Emperor Justinian and, over the centuries, have intermarried with other Arab tribes and converted to Islam. Now, reports from individuals representing the tribe describe their homes being demolished with little or no compensation, and being forced to remove bodies from the local cemetery to make way for further construction. As one representative put it, “A new urban world is being built around a Bedouin tribe of nomadic heritage… It’s a world they have always chosen to remain detached from, to whose construction they did not consent, and one that will change their place in their homeland forever.”
Furthermore, the Jebeleya tribe’s displacement brings into consideration Article 10 of the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, for which Egypt’s delegation voted affirmatively. This Declaration calls for no relocations of Indigenous peoples unless there is prior and informed consent and just and fair compensation, terms that should have been negotiated between Egypt and the Jebeleya tribe ahead of the Project.
Finally, another group concerned by the Project is the Greek Orthodox Church, which runs the Monastery. The increase in tourism to the site will inevitably impact the monks’ prayer life and their remote lifestyle at Saint Catherine. Additionally, a recent ruling by Egypt’s Court of Appeals on the land’s ownership has added further strain to this relationship. Referencing the Egyptian Civil Code, where property with historical, cultural, or environmental value could be public property, the Court ruled that Saint Catherine’s Monastery and its surrounding area on Mount Sinai is the property of the Egyptian state. This ruling contrasts with what observers describe as a longstanding tradition of keeping Saint Catherine independent, such as in 623 AD, when the Prophet Muhammad visited Mount Sinai and granted the Monastery a letter of protection, or in 1797, when Napoleon Bonaparte issued a similar protection charter during his Egyptian campaign.
“Treating the monks as mere users of the land undermines their long-standing property rights,” commented the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. In light of the ruling, recent dialogue has taken place between the Greek Prime Minister and the Egyptian government to safeguard the Church’s property rights. Overall, despite these issues, Egypt’s Great Transfiguration Project is nearly completed. The Project has highlighted the limits of UNESCO’s World Heritage framework and has impacted the Jebeleya tribe members and the Greek Orthodox monks who pray at the site and who rely on its remoteness from the world. Looking forward, it is important that the area’s unique identity be conserved in the face of future tourism.
