Nikolas Farantouris is a PASOK Member of the European Parliament and Professor of European Law at the University of Piraeus.
From the very first moment the case of the Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine of Sinai arose, I wrote that the real stake was not a simple administrative or property dispute, but the risk of losing ownership, autonomy and ultimately the undisturbed character of one of the most important monuments of world cultural and religious heritage.
The consequences are broader: purely religious, cultural, but also geopolitical. Unfortunately, the latest developments confirm that these concerns were not exaggerated. While the Greek government assured for months that “everything is under control,” the evidence coming to light a year and a half after the Egyptian courts’ rulings on the monastery’s property status is causing concern and greater anxiety.
According to named allegations, the agreement under negotiation recognises ownership of the monastery by the Egyptian State, limiting the Sinaitic Brotherhood to a “right of possession” and “use of the facilities.” If the basis of the negotiation is confirmed, this is not a compromise. It is a substantial loss of the entirety of the ownership and a historical downgrading of the monastery’s special legal status.
The issue, however, far exceeds the property aspect, as I analysed in the open letter I sent to the UNESCO Executive Board months ago. The historic monasteries of the Middle East function as arms of long-term strategic presence, endowing Greece with a timeless presence, soft power, and cultural and diplomatic influence in a region of exceptional geopolitical importance. Their protection is not only an ecclesiastical or cultural obligation; it is an element of the country’s national strategy at the crossroads of the Eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East and Africa. That is why the unjustified complacency cultivated throughout the previous period by Athens cannot continue. If in the Aegean we were trapped in the logic of “calm waters,” in Sinai there lurks the danger of being covered by the “calm sand” of faits accomplis.
The government must, first, fully and transparently inform Greek society and the political parties about the real content of the negotiations. The case cannot be allowed to remain a “secret,” since it concerns the country’s foreign policy, religious freedom and the protection of Greek cultural heritage. Second, Greece must exhaust every international legal and diplomatic means to protect the monastery’s property status, even by recourse to the competent international judicial bodies. The holy monastery is not the property of the Egyptian state, nor of Egypt’s Ministry of Culture. It belongs historically and canonically to the Sinaitic Brotherhood, which has maintained an uninterrupted presence for fifteen centuries.
At the same time, we must appeal immediately to UNESCO. Already in September 2025, in my letter to the Organisation’s Executive Board, I expressed serious reservations about the candidacy of former Egyptian Culture Minister Khaled el-Enany for the post of Director-General, precisely because of the Egyptian authorities’ questioning of the monastery’s property status. Athens then chose to ignore the warnings and give its vote to el-Enany, without even securing any quid pro quo in favour of the monastery.
Yet even under these conditions, Egypt must finally be held to account before the international community and the commitments arising from the protection of world cultural heritage.
Finally, it cannot go unnoticed that the Italian press has linked the monastery case with the broader Greek-Egyptian understandings in the energy sector. Strategic energy cooperation between Greece and Egypt is important and must proceed. It cannot, however, leave any suspicion that the historical and spiritual capital of Hellenism in the Eastern Mediterranean is being placed on the negotiating table. No economic–business agreement legitimises concessions on History, and in view of political developments no government has the right to leave behind faits accomplis that will burden the next generations.