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Show 2 1 f< %\ "J •'*". •;;<'.. e:fe *• :J April 5. 1956 Monselgneur Porphyrios III - Archbishop of Mount Sinai Convent de Mont Sinai Sharia el-Raher Cairo, %ypt Pearly beloved Father and Monselgneur Porphyrios XIX1 Most respectfully and lovlnely I send yeu my homage and cordial-greetings from the lew World.. It is needless to s ay how much your aurust personage and the ge#6 fathers of Mount Sinai have been in ray thoughts. As a loyal son of Your Beatitude, you can rest assured that your name has been on my tongue on all manner of occasions. I trust that you are enjoying eood health and that Our Lord will grajtt you a long and fruitful life in tha service of ancient Orthodoxy and our esteetsed Monastery of St. Catherine the Great. I nray that the day Is not very far when 1 can come to see you instead of just writing you from another continent. As you may expect of se, 1 selae all opportunities to try and et im^or" at Americans interested in the Monastery of St. atherine. Thia is a duty which I aw happy to perform wherever I may he. Recently, one of my distinguished colleagues, Professor Oaorge Forsyth, inferoe*) me that he woulcf he going to the Middle &ast for an archaeological tour of certain centers. So I informed him that his tour would he incomplete without visiting the Monastery of St. Catherine. Br. Forsyth is the Chairman of the Department of Fine Arts in tha University of Michigan, which is one of the most Important departments of its kind in the whole world. He himself is a very eminent American personality and his interest in ikons, mosaics and miniatures is very great. He will be accompanied by a couple of others of whom you may remember Professor Kurt tfeitzxaann of Princeton University. They have a very good car fitted out ford esert and mountain driving, and he accepted to undertake a quick journey to Sinai if I could, contact Your Beatitude on his behalf and procure for him the nedeaaary facilities. I am doing so not? with the greatest pleasure in the world. He plana to bo in Cairo on June 10 and go directly to Sinai. 1 propose that you may sand with them preferably a monk going to Mt. Sinai or, failing this, a Jebellya who can act as their guide in the wilderness to the Monastery. The American ambassador will help in securing for them the frontier permit and the right to use the rest-house at Abou ZenJnta* I told, them, however, that the Monastery representative can do that for them if necessary* The main thing Is that I would like Your finance to provide Pr. Forsyth and his companions with the strongest lettera of reeofwnendatlons to Abuna al-Wakeel and the Fathers to help them, show them the Ikons, the treasures of the Monastery, the manuscripts I |