A resounding intervention in favor of the Monastery of St. Catherine of Sinai from Washington. The State Department has made its position in a way that leaves no room for ambiguity, stating that the United States seeks to protect the historical and religious significance of the monastery. This is a message that goes beyond diplomatic politeness and places the Monastery on the agenda of American foreign policy.
Responding to a question from the Athenian-Macedonian News Agency , a spokesperson for the US State Department stressed that Washington recognizes the importance of the Monastery as the oldest continuously operating monastery in the world , and seeks its preservation.
The choice of words carries weight. The reference to uninterrupted operation is not decorative, but constitutes the essence of the argument in favor of the Monastery’s rights, as it describes a continuous, living presence of fifteen centuries that no later legal construct can annul.
The statement takes on even greater significance due to the context in which it is made. The question of the legal and ownership status of lands and properties associated with the Monastery remains open, following the court decision issued in Egypt on May 28, 2025. That decision sparked intense international concern, as it called into question rights that the Monastery has exercised indisputably for centuries, with a series of historical documents and imperial concessions documenting its long-standing presence in the region.
The American position is not, moreover, isolated. The US president’s senior adviser for Arab and African affairs, Massad Boulos , had already moved in the same direction on July 18, when he met with Archbishop Sinai Simeon at the monastery’s compound in Cairo . Mr. Boulos conveyed President Donald Trump’s personal interest , as well as his own, in preserving the monastery’s historical status quo , pledging to support efforts to preserve its historical and spiritual identity.
Two interventions, then, within a few weeks. The first at the level of a presidential advisor and with a direct invocation of the name of the American president, the second from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs itself. The repetition is not accidental and the message to Cairo is clear. The Sinai Monastery case is being monitored at the highest level and will not be allowed to fade into the flow of current events.
The importance of the American stance is, in practice, decisive. Greece, the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the international scientific community have repeatedly sounded the alarm, but the addition of Washington to the front of defenders of the Monastery’s regime changes the dynamic.
Egypt maintains a close relationship with the US on a military, economic, and diplomatic level, and a persistent American reminder is not something that can be easily ignored.
The stakes, after all, are not simply ownership. They are whether a world heritage site, one of the most important centers of the Christian East, with a unique library of manuscripts and a collection of icons that has no equivalent in the world, will continue to live as a monastery or will gradually be transformed into a museum shell under foreign management. And to this question, Washington’s voice has just been added to the right side.
