Greeks and Pontic Bedouins at St Catherine's of Sinai
- Written by E.Tsiliopoulos
MP Maximos Harakopoulos visited the Holy Monastery of St Catherine in the Sinai Peninsula with members of the Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy.
There they heard the Righteous fr. Symeon, the number two in the hierarchy after the abbot in the monastery, to explain that the Bedouins who have sheltered the monastery also have Greek blood.
As he said, when Emperor Justinian founded the monastery in the 6th century, he brought families from Pontos to guard and serve the monastery. Over the centuries, with the prevalence of Islam in the region they may have become lost, but the Bedouins of the Gebelle tribe are aware that deep down part of them is Greek.
"If we are not brothers, we are definitely cousins," said Maximos Harakopoulos, who also has Pontic roots. After that he was photographed with a... Pontian Bedouin!
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