St. Catherine’s Monastery
October 8th, 2007 by lmenger
St. Catherine’s Monastery was founded by the Roman Empress Helena in 330 A.D. and was built beside, what was believed to be the Burning Bush, from which God spoke to Moses.
In the sixth century, Emperor Justinian built a fortress around the original chapel and also built a monastery. It is one of the oldest continually functioning monasteries in the world. It is named after Catherine, a legendary martyr from Alexandria.
The photo you see below is a picture of a descendant of the original Burning Bush. We were sad to see that so many people were ripping off leaves and pulling on the roots, in order to take a “souvenir” home with them.
5 Responses to “St. Catherine’s Monastery”
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Hello Mrs. Tolisano and Mrs. Menger….we are in 5th grade science class right now. It is 8:42 a.m..Thank you for the photo of the bush, the students and I have never seen a photo before regarding the burning bush.
Questions:
Nick: “Was the bush in the monostary or outside?
Malachy: “Was the plant big or small?
Mrs. I: “What kind of plant is it?
Catherine: “Why are the people taking the leaves?”
Denver: “Is it as tangled as it looks?”
Jimmy: “I remember that God said in the Bible to take off your shoes…you are on Holy Ground…are you all doing that now?”
5th Grade Science Class:
The class is amazed by this photo…to see an actual decendent of the bush.
Alicia: “Why were people wanting to pull leaves off?”
Olivia: “Why does it kind of look like hay?”
Kyle: “Is is gaurded by people of the monastary?”
Sarah Claire: “Where is the bush now?”
It seems that many of the tourist sites you have visited are not as closely monitered as the tourist areas here in the U.S. We are remembering the museums that allowed touching of artifacts, the trash and smoking on Mt. Sinai, and now the burning bush. It’s interesting that all of these things have survived as long as they have without the strict oversight. It has been so fascinating and fun reading about all of your adventures! We can’t wait to talk to you in person, and to look back at all of the awesome photos that you took on your trip! Safe travels home! Love, Mrs. McKnight’s class.
We were surprised that there was no supervision near the burning bush. The bush is located on the inside of the monastery in a courtyard with a wall on one side. It was so crowded, similar to when you try to get into a ride in Disney World, that we just felt being pushed and shoved while passing by the plant. One man seemed to have gotten real upset when he saw people ripping leaves and roots off the bush. We don’t know if it was another tourist or someone working at the monastery. He charged forward as fast as he could through the crowds and told them to quit ripping anything off. Not everyone wanted to listen to him though. We can imagine that people wanted to take part of the plant home as a souvenir, so they could say that they had a piece of the burning bush at home.
It looks like “hay”, because there are thousands of tourists streaming by the bush EVERY day and pulling at it. What a shame.
Jimmy: No one was required to take their shoes off in the monastery.
Denver: The plant is actually as tangled as it looks on the photo.
Mrs. Inclan: The information that we found was that the specimen is “a very rare plant, Rubus Sanctus, a non-fruit-bearing relative of the blackberry bramble” that can live for thousands of years.
Kyle: We did not see that anyone was guarding the bush. But then again, there were soooo many people pushing and shoving around us, we probably would not have noticed them.