Sinai Librarian to speak on “Manuscripts East and West”

Archimandrite Justin Sinaites, Librarian at the Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai on the Sinai Peninsula, will deliver a lecture titled “Manuscripts East and West” at Villanova University on Wednesday, November 19, 2014 at 7:00 p.m.  The lecture will be held in the Villanova Room of Connelly Center, 800 East Lancaster Avenue, Villanova, PA.

On Friday, November 21, Father Justin will speak on “The Tabernacle in the Wilderness: Sinai as Past and Future Hope,” at the Metropolitan Museum of the Orthodox Church in America at Saint Tikhon’s Monastery, South Canaan, PA.  The lecture will begin at 7:00 p.m.

Father Justin will deliver a third lecture—“Monasticism from the Desert Fathers”—after the 10:00 a.m. Divine Liturgy at Saint Herman of Alaska Church, 1855 Middletown Road, Gradyville, PA on Sunday, November 23, the Feast of the Great Martyr Catherine of Alexandria.  The lecture will be delivered in the parish’s Memorial Hall.

All three presentations are free of charge and open to the public.

Established in the mid-sixth century, the Monastery of Saint Catherine is well known for its collection of early Church manuscripts—the largest in the world, second only to the Vatican.  Father Justin’s duties include photographing the 1,200 manuscripts discovered in 1975 in a hidden compartment at the monastery.  With this discovery, the monastery’s manuscript holdings were increased to 3,300.