St. Catherine Monastery and the Mountain of Prayer

Destinations By Brian Wilkes

The walled monastery church of Saint Catherine of Mount Sinai is the world’s oldest Orthodox church in continuous use. It is in the southern Sinai peninsula, at the site where legend say God spoke to Moses through a Burning Bush, in the shadow of the mountain where God gave Moses the tablets of the Law. It has served as a pilgrimage destination for 1500 years. My family has been connect to the church since the 6th century. Its library, founded between 548 and 565, is the oldest continuously operating library in the world, preserving the second largest collection of early Christian texts in the world from as far as Ethiopia and Georgia, outnumbered only by the Vatican Library. There is even a mosque on the grounds for use by Muslim visitors and travelers. This 2021 work is based on an 1839 lithograph by Scottish artist David Roberts. Breaking the stereotype of portraying desert scenes in pale shades of yellow and beige, I have invoked the brighter colors of America’s Painted Desert and Antelope Cave, letting the distant Mount Horeb, which appears almost as a pair of praying hands, to trend to lavender. May this artwork be an inspiration to you and reconnect you with the Word.