A few of the Sinai manuscripts are splendid works of art, with gilded letters and brilliant illuminations, created in Constantinople in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, when the city was at its height as the center of culture and devotion. But no less significant are the humble manuscripts written at Sinai, often on reused parchment, bound between rough boards, the pages stained from long use, a witness to the deprivations and austerity of Sinai, and to the generations of monks who have maintained the life of devotion and the cycle of daily services at this holy place.

Father Justin, St Catherine’s Monastery Library