ATHENS, Greece | The escalating crisis surrounding Saint Catherine’s Monastery at Mount Sinai has taken on serious political dimensions in Greece, with leading opposition parties launching sharp attacks on the government’s handling of the issue.
PASOK–Movement for Change was the first to raise the alarm. Its foreign affairs spokesperson Dimitris Mantzos called on the government to “take immediately all necessary diplomatic and political initiatives” to defuse the crisis and protect the monastery’s spiritual status. Mantzos described the situation as “explosive,” stressing that it undermines the legacy of the world’s oldest living Christian monastery and threatens its property rights. He accused the government of “downplaying the issue” and dismissing early warnings about the growing danger.
The criticism deepened when SYRIZA followed suit. In a strongly worded statement, SYRIZA’s foreign affairs chief Rena Dourou charged that Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ foreign policy “puts the nation’s interests at risk.” She argued that “the crisis at the monastery did not come out of the blue,” noting Cairo’s intentions were clear for some time, while accusing the government of relying on a “fragile verbal understanding” with Egypt.
Dourou further pointed to the government’s failure to respond to a parliamentary question submitted by SYRIZA on June 2, stressing that “an answer is owed not to a party but to the citizens.” She warned that “the tragic developments at Mount Sinai prove that Greece’s international standing is not being upgraded, but collapsing by the day,” citing what she described as “successive national defeats signed by Kyriakos Mitsotakis” from Turkey and Albania to Libya, the Balkans, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East.
The mounting political firestorm underlines how the fate of Saint Catherine’s Monastery—an institution of immense spiritual and historical significance—has now become a domestic flashpoint, entangled with Greece’s foreign policy and regional diplomacy.
