Russian Research in the Sinai Monastery

Russian engagement with the treasures of the Sinai Monastery began with Archimandrite Porfirii Uspenskii’s visits in 1845 and 1850. His published account (1856) provides detailed descriptions of the monastery’s history, condition, and manuscript collection. Porfirii examined the 4th-century Codex Sinaiticus, removing a few folia, and left extensive archival material. His manuscript collection, now housed in the Russian National Library (St. Petersburg), includes unique palimpsests in multiple languages. He also donated 26 icons to the Kiev Theological Academy, including the renowned encaustics recently brought to Paris. Archimandrite Antonin Kapustin, chief of the Russian Mission to Jerusalem (1866–1894), visited Sinai in 1870. Of the forty-seven days he spent there, forty were devoted to the library. He compiled a catalogue of 1,310 Greek and 38 Slavonic manuscripts, while his assistant Fadlala Sarouf described 500 Arabic manuscripts. Antonin’s catalogue was later used by V. Gardthausen (1886), and the Slavonic catalogue was published in 1873. Russian research continued in the 1880s and early 20th century. Professor Tsagareli described the Georgian manuscripts (1883), Nikodim Kondakov documented manuscript miniatures (1881), Alexei Dmitrievskii catalogued roughly one-third of the icons (1888), and Vladimir Beneshevich completed the Greek manuscript catalogue, photographed manuscripts, and recorded archaeological monuments (1912, 1925). This presentation provides an overview of these archival materials and assesses their ongoing value for modern scholarship.