PROTECTION & PROMOTION OF THE SINAI MONUMENTS

The Holy Monastery of Sinai, in its endeavors to conserve and to promote the heritage of the Sinai monuments, collaborates in different programs, and above all, with the Egyptian Archaeological Service; while, at the same time, it accepts any good intentioned interest that might present itself from any direction, either in the form of expertise, or in the form of financial support, and in this, always in full accord with the Egyptian state authorities.

During the last fifty years, besides having had a continuous collaboration with the Egyptian authorities, it has also collaborated with many other agencies. As regards the protection of the Sinai monuments in the field of the conservation of the portable icons and other ecclesiastical treasures, there is a standing collaboration with the conservation department of the Greek Ministry of Culture, while, for the conservation of the manuscripts, it collaborates with the National Library of Greece and with Camberwell College in England. In the field of the stability of the edifices it collaborates with the directorate of the Greek Ministry of Culture responsible for the preservation of Byzantine and post-Byzantine monuments. As regards the study of the Sinai monuments, it collaborates with the Library of Congress and with the National Library of Greece for the microfilm records of the manuscripts, while for the study of the icons and other ecclesiastical treasures it has cooperated with Princeton University and with members of the Greek Christian Society. The study of the manuscript miniatures has been carried out with McGill University in Canada. In the field of excavations it has collaborated with the German Archaeological School of Cairo and with the University of Athens. In collaboration with the Athens-based Mount Sinai Foundation, recently it has begun a relative procedure aimed at the organization, with the use of digital technology, of the Sinai Archive of Monuments, which will be at the disposal of the international scientific community. This will be in close collaboration with the construction of a large cultural complex in the area of the municipality of Atalantis in central Greece. With the authorization of the Egyptian authorities, the Holy Monastery of Sinai has taken part at international expositions that have been held in such renowned museums as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, the Benaki Museum, and the Christian and Byzantine Museum, in Athens. Lastly, in the field of publications, it has the possibility to present a series of books that deal with Sinai themes in combination with the production and distribution of Sinai memorabilia.