Egypt FM reassures Greece over St Catherine’s Monastery ruling

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty met with his Greek counterpart Giorgos Gerapetritis in Cairo on Wednesday to discuss a recent court ruling over a land dispute between the monastery and the South Sinai governorate. According to a statement from Egypt's foreign ministry, as reported by AFP, the ruling does not affect the site and that it "preserves the monastery's esteemed spiritual value and religious standing". The ruling had created concern among Orthodox patriarchates in Athens, Jerusalem and Istanbul. St Catherine's was established in the sixth century and is the world's oldest continually inhabited Christian monastery.