Earthquake in Sinai and its consequences for the Sinai monastery

News from the Orthodox East At the end of Holy Week, we received the following letter from the Archbishop of Mount Sinai, Cyrus Porfiry. “The rumors that have reached you about the catastrophe in the Sinai monastery, writes the Most Reverend Porfiry, are not only true and truthful, but also, it seems, they could hardly paint this sad picture for you correctly. A strong earthquake, not one of those that usually worries the elders - the monks of the Sinai monastery, that occurred on the night of December 18, 1889, caused indescribable confusion among the elders: from strong shocks their cells began to collapse and later large buildings turned into heaps of ruins, as well as the new church The κοιητήριον (tomb) suffered greatly and its walls were cracked. Thus, suddenly, by the will of God, the monks found themselves almost in the open air.” “But God’s punishment did not stop here either. The heavy downpour that occurred seemed to come to completely destroy what had been spared by the earthquake. Immediately upon receiving the news of everything that had happened, I sent emergency technicians to provide first aid” 1 . So, there cannot be even a shadow of a doubt that the ancient Sinai monastery, located in the farthest east, the custodian of Christian antiquities better than the era of Christian art and enlightenment, was subjected to a terrible disaster, the full horror of which can only be understood by those who are at least somewhat familiar with the history of this monastery, with its topographical position and modern condition. That is why it would not be superfluous for our readers to make at least the most cursory sketch of the history and topography of the holy Sinai monastery, so that their imagination can paint a difficult picture of terrible destruction. The Sinai monastery was built by the Byzantine emperor Justinian I between 527 and 557, who, at the request of the Sinai fathers, sent a special commissioner for this purpose. This latter was ordered to build a monastery “stronger than other monasteries” in Sinai, and the Egyptian prefect was ordered to release to the commissioner “as much money as he requires for the proposed buildings, to provide him with working people and to bring them wheat from Egypt.” The commissioner, having appeared at Sinai, found there a small church above the Holy Bush, in a valley between high mountains, on the right side - Horeb, on the left - Galaktin and Epistimia, and on the east - the low, but strongly sloping hill of Jethro towards the monastery. At first he thought of building a monastery on the top of Sinai, but then, when he considered all the disadvantages of such a position for the monastery, due to the height of the place and the lack of water, and entreated by the elders of the Sinai, he agreed to build the current beautiful basilica with cells for monks in place of the previous small church and surround it all with high stone walls in the likeness of a fortress, and on the top of Sinai he built a small church in honor of the Transfiguration. When, however, the buildings were completed and the commissioner presented the plans of the monastery to the emperor, the latter was extremely dissatisfied with them, since, having climbed the slope of the surrounding mountains, anyone could shoot from the middle of the monastery and kill the monks, and to protect the monastery from such misfortunes, he ordered to send a hundred Christian Romanian families, who, unfortunately, turned into wild Bedouins of the Muslim faith and at times often became a threat to the monastery. Thus, it is clear that the desire of the monks and the builder of the monastery to provide the monastery with some of the conveniences of life placed this remote monastery, surrounded by a five-day desert, in many ways very difficult, difficult circumstances, which often served as the source of its great disasters. The Sinai monastery, as its founder expected, was subjected to repeated attacks from enemies and local Sinai Arabs, starting with a brutal pogrom in the 11th century under the Caliph El-Gakem, almost up to the present day. During the last uprising of Arabi Pasha in Egypt, in 1882, the Sinai Bedouins also became agitated, keeping the monastery under siege for 40 days and threatening Raifa with complete destruction. It is difficult to imagine what would have happened to this glorious monastery if not for the resourcefulness and courage of Fr. Galaktion, the current housekeeper of the monastery, did not save her. O. Galaktion, when a disturbance of minds began among the brethren and many tried to secretly leave the monastery wall, since the gates were blocked with bricks, and entered into negotiations with the sheikhs, the leaders of the rebels, and at that time, through trusted Arabs, he managed to let the residents of Raifa know about the danger threatening them and to the Suez-English consul about the critical situation of the monastery. The inhabitants of Raifa were saved by boarding boats and sailing into the Red Sea, and the monastery got out of a difficult predicament, thanks to the fact that an English battleship appeared near Raifa, supplying the monastery with food and, with its appearance, frightening the Bedouins scattered across the desert 2 . But even in peacetime, the Bedouins, like predatory crows, swooped down on the monastery in all its adversities, when it seemed possible for them to profit from something from the monastery’s goods, since, according to the concepts of these sons of the wild desert, “all the ruins belong to them 3 . The Bedouins had many occasions to present such rights through the long history of the Sinai monastery, which was quite often subject to destruction from terrible earthquakes and torrential rains. Of these terrible events in the chronicles of the monastery, we will note two or three, for example, with additions based on new data. The most terrible earthquake in the Sinai monastery was the earthquake that occurred on April 30, 1201. In the monuments we find detailed information not only about the terrible destruction the monastery suffered, but even about the fact that this event was long kept in the memory of the fathers and was remembered by fasting the day before and the solemn service on May 1. This is how the Sinai Typicons describe this sad celebration. “On this very day we must celebrate the memory of the terrible earthquake, which, out of love for humanity, happened and began on this very day, i.e. on the first day of the present month, and lasted a whole year. This earthquake did a lot of damage to our monastery, destroying cells, a tower and a wall. It happened in the summer of 6713, Indiction 9. We must fast on April 30th. The Liturgy of the Apostle (James) is celebrated at its own time, the brethren take the antidoron, go to their cells, staying in them until the evening, in the evening they partake of the antidoron and eat dry food. In the cells, everyone should, each according to his own will, perform a canon, thanking the humane, all-holy and gracious God that He would deliver us from such anger. After sunset, the candidate calls and we all, without exception, get ready for church. The priest makes the beginning, we say the Trisagion, etc. and then we begin “Blessed is the man,” read three kathismas and sing the canon, first to the earthquake, and if there is no canon to the earthquake, then we sing the canon to Christ, the prophet Moses the Seer of God and the Mother of God. After the third song, the sedal of the canons begins, the reading immediately begins and the Psalter begins again. We read three kathismas, again sing the next three songs of the canon and read the kontakion of the Mother of God “To the Chosen Voivode” and ikos and reading. Then again the next four kathismas of the Psalter, the remaining three songs of the canon, the priest pronounces the litany and the lithium is performed. On the way to the Holy Bush, we sing the stichera of the Holy Bush, upon fulfillment of which we say: “Mistress, pray to save us, all of us standing unveiled.” Then the priest says the following prayer: “For this monastery to be preserved, for every city and country, from famine, destruction, cowardice,” etc. We sing “Lord have mercy” 100 times. The priest remembers the names. While singing the “glory” stichera of the prophet and “and now” to the Mother of God, we go to the church, where the priest pronounces the litany and performs the dismissal. The candlelighter climbs the belfry and rings, and we, having rested a little, get up. The priest makes the usual beginning and reads the Six Psalms as usual, sings “God is the Lord” and all the rest of the Matins sequence according to custom. The liturgy follows the day and the earthquake. After the liturgy is completed, we go to the meal to perform agape. This charter must absolutely be carried out once every year without violation on the part of anyone” 4. His Eminence Porfiry, from the words of Patriarch Nektarios of Jerusalem, reports this event as follows: “On April 30, 1312 5 , in broad daylight, a small earthquake occurred on the Sinai Peninsula; the second shaking of the earth followed at midnight, at dawn - the third, and from May 1st the earth began to shake so violently and so terribly that with the roar of stones tearing off the mountains and rolling into the valleys, it seemed that the entire peninsula would collapse. Then the north-eastern walls with two towers fell, so that a loaded animal could freely pass through them; some cells were completely destroyed, and some of their roofs fell off. The frightened elders fled to the cemetery and in tears awaited the complete destruction of their monastery. The Arabians gathered to them and wanted to settle in the ruins, but the elders did not allow them, instilling in them that this disaster was sent from God, that as long as the monks had not yet left for distant places, the monastery would not be allowed yet, and that if they did not renovate it and dispersed, then it would no longer be a sin for the Arabians to live in it” 6 . The Arabians agreed with the arguments of the elders, but six days later the craftsmen sent to Sinai by the Petro-Arabian Metropolitan Gabriel to rebuild the church on top of Sinai arrived, and the elders begged them to help them in their trouble and restore the destroyed monastery, and then do the work for which they were sent. The monastery was thus restored. Of the many other cases of earthquakes in Sinai, 7 we will also note the earthquake 8 that occurred in 1799 on May 7 at four o'clock in the afternoon. At this time, the monastery slaves destroyed the monastery garden 9. But all these disasters for the Sinai monastery can be considered random, occasionally only recurring, but a more dangerous enemy of the Sinai monastery should be considered the annual rain showers, due to which, from the surrounding mountains, huge streams of water flow down to the monastery, uniting under the monastery all together and forming one stormy river, rattling noisily over the stones, splashing from the wall of the monastery and on its way carrying away and destroying everything that she will get it. Such downpours wash away the dilapidated cells of the monks, wash away the walls of the monastery and cause especially great damage to the small garden, but carefully cared for by the monastic hands. “Everything would be fine,” our traveler Prof. notes about this kindergarten. N. Kondakov, if there were not a constant and terrible enemy - hollow water from the mountains in the spring, which carries away manured soil from afar, digs holes and ditches, sometimes destroys a third and half of the garden. The hard work of the Kalogors and Serdala (former serf Arabs) of the monastery put up entire Cyclopean structures, walls, terraces, ditches and ditches against the enemy. Here, as on the soil of Zealand, the slightest carelessness and negligence prepare the death of crops: a wall broke through, a terrible stream gushed out, and in two or three hours a desert reigns in place of a fertile garden, and it will cost many years of work to remove the mountains of piled up stones and sand and create productive soil again 10.” And indeed, a lot of misfortune befell the Sinai monastery and its garden from these downpours, which, sometimes destroying the garden to the ground, caused great harm to the poor inhabitants of the Sinai desert. In the twenties of the last century, there was such a terrible downpour at night that the waters spilled far along the Rahe line, flooded an entire Bedouin camp, sleeping peacefully, and even carried away several human victims who died in the water element. This sad event still lives in the memory of the Bedouins, and after it for a long time they counted the time from this downpour. So, these are the constant fears under which the glorious Sinai monastery lived for more than a thousand years. Each time, with the help of God, she rose from under a pile of stones and rubbish, was renewed by her own strength and the material help of benefactors, and continued to be a bright star and a stronghold of Orthodoxy in the farthest east, spreading the light of her benefits around herself, sharing the last piece of daily bread not only with her fellow believers, but even with the half-wild sons of the Sinai desert. This last misfortune is perhaps the most difficult for the monastery, since almost all of the mentioned disasters arose over it at the same time and they were also joined by some other adversities of smaller sizes, but perhaps more sensitive in moral terms, such as winter time, which in Sinai can be quite severe, the eve of the greatest Christian holiday of the Nativity of Christ and the time of the onset of the pilgrimage season to the Sinai monastery. As far as we know, one earthquake has always been a serious disaster, from which the monastery had difficulty recovering; now “unfinished” by the earthquake, in the words of His Eminence Porfiry, it was washed away and destroyed by rain, so that the Sinaitic fathers had to celebrate the eve of the holiday in the open air in the cold. But the fathers of the monastery were already accustomed to hardships and deprivations, living for many years in their monastery, and therefore in this case they cared little about themselves: all their thoughts were aimed at somehow finding shelter for those Russian fans who sometimes in the number of a hundred people go straight from the Jordan to Sinai. The Sinai monastery has long been famous among our pilgrims for its hospitality and hospitality, and now, in view of the disasters that befell it, it had to either refuse hospitality to the pilgrims, or embarrass itself to the last extreme. The fathers preferred the latter and made an even deeper and stronger impression with their cordiality and affectionate welcome on those few of the Russian pilgrims who visited Sinai this year. Grateful pilgrims, who were personally convinced of the dire need of the monastery, have already made their contribution to the restoration of the monastery, but these sacrifices are not enough even for basic necessities. In order for the monastery to be brought to the state in which it was before the last destruction, large funds were needed, and the poor Sinai monastery did not have them. From personal observations, we know how much effort it took for the monastery to raise the necessary funds for the construction of a burial church in the name of St. Tryphon, which was now badly damaged by the earthquake. And if it weren’t for the small capital left for this subject by Bishop Matvey of Ritimin and Avlopotamia, who was tonsured at the Sinai monastery, who died in Sinai in 1884, as well as the remarkably unanimous donations of the fewest brothers who gave their small savings, which they made from 2 gold pieces, usually given to them annually by the monastery for clothes, then this would hardly have been a thing, desired and long-awaited by everyone, had to be implemented. But now the tomb and many buildings in the monastery have been destroyed; Where, one wonders, will the monastery find the means to resume, restore, correct all this? The brethren and the archbishop-abbot place their hope in the help of God, repeatedly and miraculously given to the Sinai monastery in the past, as well as in the support and material donations of the Russian pious people, who from time immemorial, from the tsar to the commoner, sent generous alms for the needs of the monastery and who (i.e. the people) still constitute the main contingent of pilgrims to Sinai. Therefore, we are not averse to thinking that our pastors, with their word to the flock about the misfortune that befell the Sinai monastery, did a great service, both to the monastery and to the Russian people, many of whom were personally at Sinai and saw the hospitality and cordiality towards the Russians in this monastery. Now, more than ever, is the time for us to repay this monastery for its hospitality. Earthquakes, often quite sensitive, although short-lived, occur in Sinai almost every year, especially during the summer heat, from May to August. Right Palest. Collection Issue 10, S.P.B. 1888 p. 21. Eminence Porfiry. First trip to Sinai. S.P.B. 1856 pp. 137.153. Tʋπιχ. RKP. Sinaisk Bible No. 1097 l.122,123. Obviously, there is a mistake in the year made by Ave. Nekatriy. First Journey to the Sinai Monastery, pp. 136–138. Περιϒραϕή ίερά του õρουϛ Σινᾰ. ᾽Еν Bενзτ. 1817, σελ. 125. It should be noted that a remarkable physical phenomenon is that, in all cases of earthquakes in Sinai, those who were in the basilica never heard and do not hear underground impacts, and the Sinai basilica was never damaged by an earthquake. RKP. Sinaisk. Bible 1464 No. 1109. Entry on the output sheet. Let's go. to Sinai in 1881. Od. 1882, pp. 44–45. You might be interested in: