St Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai (Egypt)

Saint Catherine's Monastery lies on the Sinai Peninsula, at the mouth of a gorge at the foot of Mount Sinai, in the city of Saint Catherine, Egypt in the South Sinai Governorate. The monastery is controlled by the autonomous Church of Sinai, part of the wider Eastern Orthodox Church, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Built between 548 and 565, the monastery is one of the oldest working Christian monasteries in the world. The site contains the world's oldest continually operating library, possessing many unique books including the Syriac Sinaiticus and, until 1859, the Codex Sinaiticus.

According to tradition, Catherine of Alexandria was a Christian martyr sentenced to death on the breaking wheel. When this failed to kill her, she was beheaded. According to tradition, angels took her remains to Mount Sinai. Around the year 800, monks from the Sinai Monastery found her remains.

Although it is commonly known as Saint Catherine's, the monastery's full official name is the Sacred Monastery of the God-Trodden Mount Sinai. The patronal feast of the monastery is the Feast of the Transfiguration. The monastery has become a favorite site of pilgrimage.

The oldest record of monastic life at Sinai comes from the travel journal written in Latin by a woman named Egeria about 381–384. She visited many places around the Holy Land and Mount Sinai, where, according to the Old Testament, Moses received the Ten Commandments from God.

The monastery was built by order of Emperor Justinian I (reigned 527–565), enclosing the Chapel of the Burning Bush (also known as "Saint Helen's Chapel") ordered to be built by Empress Consort Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, at the site where Moses is supposed to have seen the burning bush. The living bush on the grounds is purportedly the one seen by Moses. Structurally the monastery's king post truss is the oldest known surviving roof truss in the world. The site is sacred to Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

A mosque was created by converting an existing chapel during the Fatimid Caliphate (909–1171), which was in regular use until the era of the Mamluk Sultanate in the 13th century and is still in use today on special occasions. During the Ottoman Empire, the mosque was in desolate condition; it was restored in the early 20th century.

During the seventh century, the isolated Christian anchorites of the Sinai were eliminated: only the fortified monastery remained. The monastery is still surrounded by the massive fortifications that have preserved it. Until the twentieth century, access was through a door high in the outer walls. From the time of the First Crusade, the presence of Crusaders in the Sinai until 1270 spurred the interest of European Christians and increased the number of intrepid pilgrims who visited the monastery. The monastery was supported by its dependencies in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Crete, Cyprus and Constantinople.

The monastery, along with several dependencies in the area, constitute the entire Church of Sinai, which is headed by an archbishop, who is also the abbot of the monastery. The exact administrative status of the church within the Eastern Orthodox Church is ambiguous: by some, including the church itself, it is considered autocephalous, by others an autonomous church under the jurisdiction of the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem. The archbishop is traditionally consecrated by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem; in recent centuries he has usually resided in Cairo. During the period of the Crusades which was marked by bitterness between the Orthodox and Catholic churches, the monastery was patronized by both the Byzantine emperors and the rulers of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and their respective courts.

The monastery library preserves the second largest collection of early codices and manuscripts in the world, outnumbered only by the Vatican Library. It contains Greek, Arabic, Armenian, Coptic, Hebrew, Georgian, and Aramaic texts.

The Monastery also has a copy of the Ashtiname of Muhammad, in which the Islamic prophet Muhammad is claimed to have bestowed his protection upon the monastery.

St Catherine’s Monastery in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula is believed to enshrine the burning bush from which God first revealed himself to Moses. It also contains a treasure trove of icons and ancient manuscripts.

St Catherine’s, an Orthodox establishment, is one of the oldest Christian monasteries in the world and has been the centre of monastic life in the southern Sinai.

Monks have lived here, in the shadow of Mount Sinai, almost without interruption since the Byzantine emperor Justinian built the monastery in the 6th century. An earlier chapel on the site is said to have been erected on St Helena’s orders in 337.

Since the location was difficult to protect from marauders, Justinian surrounded the monastery with a high wall of close-fitting granite stones, about 2 metres thick. Most of what can be seen on the site today dates back to the 6th century.

The bush still lives

The holiest part of St Catherine’s Monastery is the Chapel of the Burning Bush, a small chamber behind the altar of the basilica. It is often closed to the public and those who enter must remove their shoes, just as Moses did when he approached the burning bush (Exodus 3:2-5).

Under the chapel’s altar is a silver star which is believed to mark the site of the bush from which God called Moses to lead his people out of Egypt.

The reputed bush was transplanted several metres away. The pilgrim Egeria, who visited between 381 and 384, described it as “still alive and sprouting”, and situated within a pretty garden.

The bush or its successor, now sprawling over a protective stone wall, still lives and is carefully tended by the monks. Since the Bible narrative says the bush was not consumed by the flames, the Orthodox name for it is the Un burnt Bush.

The bush is a bramble of the rose family called Rubus sanctus, which includes the raspberry and blackberry. A native of the Holy Land, it is extremely long-lived. The monastery’s bush neither blooms nor gives any fruit.

Moses’ well still gives water

St Catherine’s Monastery also encompasses the Well of Moses, also known as the Well of Jethro, where Moses is said to have met his future wife, Zipporah.

As recounted in Exodus (2:15-21), Moses was resting by the well when the seven daughters of Jethro (also called Reuel) came to draw water. Some shepherds drove them away and Moses came to their defence.

In gratitude, Jethro invited Moses to his home and gave him his daughter Zipporah in marriage.
The well is still one of the monastery’s main sources of water.

Icons escaped destruction

St Catherine’s Monastery is renowned for its art treasures. Its collection of more than 2000 icons is probably the largest in the world. Its library of 4500 ancient Christian manuscripts is second only to that of the Vatican Library in Rome.

The monastery’s isolation saved its oldest icons during the 8th century when the Byzantine emperor Leo III ordered the destruction of any imagery depicting Jesus or one of the saints. These early icons are naturalistic and free from stylisation and the rules that later icons followed.

A selection from the icon collection is always on display in the basilica.

The ancient manuscripts are mainly in Greek, but also in Arabic, Armenian, Coptic, Georgian, Slavonic and Syriac. Only one is in Latin. Some are exquisitely illuminated.

The monastery no longer contains its most precious manuscript. This was the Codex Sinaiticus, a 4th-century copy of most of the Bible in Greek. It was discovered in 1844 by a German biblical scholar, Friedrich Constantin von Tischendorf, who obtained it for Tsar Alexander I of Russia.

Whether the codex was to be returned is disputed. Most of it is now in the British Museum, to which it was sold by the Soviet Russian government in 1933 for $100,000. In 2009 an international project placed the full text online.

Basilica has unusual mosaic

The most outstanding art treasure in the monastery is an unusual mosaic of the Transfiguration of Jesus, above the altar in the apse of the basilica.

This well-preserved mosaic from the 6th century can be glimpsed behind the gilded iconostasis that dates from the 17th century.

Christ is shown in glory in an almond-shaped panel of greys and blues, wearing a white mantle edged with gold. His halo has a gold cross on a white and gold backing.

Around him are the prophets of the Sinai, Moses and Elijah, and the disciples John, Peter and James.
The inside rim of the arch is decorated with medallions of the 12 apostles, with Paul, Thaddaeus and Matthias replacing those in the Transfiguration composition.

The monastery is actually dedicated to the Transfiguration, but it was renamed for St Catherine of Alexandria, a 3rd-century martyr. According to tradition, this happened after monks found her incorrupt body, which had been transported by angels to the top of Mount Catherine (Jebel Katharina), the highest mountain in the Sinai.

To the right of the altar in the basilica is a marble sarcophagus with two silver caskets containing the saint’s skull and left hand.

Monks’ bones are collected

Because the ground is rocky, the monks created the monastery garden by bringing soil from elsewhere. It contains fruit trees including olives, apricots and plums, and produces a variety of vegetables.

Nearby are the cemetery and charnel house. When monks die they are first buried in the cemetery. After their bodies decay, their bones are exhumed and transferred to the charnel house.
In the charnel house can be seen the bones of thousands of deceased monks, with separate piles for legs, hands, feet, ribs and skulls. Martyrs and archbishops are in open coffins. Inside the door, dressed in purple robes, sits the skeleton of Stephanos, a 6th-century guardian of the path to Mount Sinai.
An unusual feature of the monastery compound is a mosque. Originally built in the 6th century as a hospice for pilgrims, it was converted to a mosque in 1106 for the use of local Bedouin, some of whom work at the monastery.

Of the monastery’s four original gates, three in the northwestern wall have been blocked for hundreds of years. Until the middle of the 19th century, access was by basket and pulley to a gate about 9 metres above ground level in the northeastern wall. Then a new gate was opened in the northwestern wall.

Church of St Catherine of Alexandria

This 19th-century church adjoins the 6th-century Church of the Nativity, built over the cave where Jesus was born. It even shares a wall with the Nativity church. The Church of St Catherine is the parish church for Bethlehem’s Catholics. It is also often used by groups of pilgrims.

The midnight Mass beamed from Bethlehem to television viewers worldwide on Christmas Eve is celebrated in the Church of St Catherine of Alexandria.

St Catherine was an early 4th-century martyr from Egypt was of noble birth and well educated. At the age of 18, she challenged the emperor Maxentius (or his father, the emperor Maximian) for persecuting Christians and worshipping false gods.
The enraged emperor ordered her to be tortured on a wheel — hence the term “Catherine wheel”. But when Catherine touched the wheel, it broke. She was then beheaded and tradition says angels carried her body to Mount Sinai, where in the 6th century a church and monastery were built in her honour.
This latter part of the story was, however, unknown to the earliest pilgrims to the mountain. It was two or three centuries later that the story of St Catherine and the angels began to circulate.
St Catherine of Alexandria has been ranked with St Margaret and St Barbara as one of the 14 “most helpful” saints in heaven. She is also one of the saints reputed to have spoken to St Joan of Arc.

The church was built between 1725 and 1730 in order to replace a more ancient building, which dated back to the middle of 16th century which was damaged by the earthquake of 1693; it had been the seat of the brotherhood since its birth in 1574. The new building was realised thanks to an amount of money given away by a priest, Giacinto Giglio, governor pro tempore of the brotherhood. The new seat was consecrated on 6 October 1730. Around the middle of the eighteenth century the facade and the bell tower were built. Between 1774 and 1792 the marble altars were constructed, while the marble inlaid floor was constructed about 1803−04. The building was damaged by English air raids during the summer of 1943. Repairs were made in the years after the war. The church was damaged again by the earthquakes of 1990 and 2002.

The building is of an octagonal structure, however the different length of the final parts of the passage which link the vestibule and the presbytery gives a pronounced longitudinal course. The hall is covered by a lunette cloister vault, which extends upwards. The church features a marble inlaid floor. The interior decoration consists of Tuscan pilasters that support the trabeation, on which stands the tambour. The pilasters turn into the ribs of the vault. This one is divided into eight slices whose center represents the Agnus Dei. On one side of the octagon there are a wooden confessional and a side exit. The four sides of the octagon receive altars. The main one was built with precious stone materials and stands over a raised platform. In the centre of the vestibule there is a double stone which allows people to enter inside the crypt, where centuries ago, the brothers were buried. The facade is set on a basalt base which is divided into three parts by four Tuscan pilaters. These support remarkable eves. In the central part of the facade there is a simple entry portal; above it you can see a window crowned by a triangulate tympanum. In the left part there are narrow loopholes and a circular window which illuminates the bell tower stairway. On the top of the tower is a small temple decorated by four one-light windows, one on each side. It is covered by a small dome equipped with pinnacles and it shows an octagonal plant, similar to the church.

The Church of Saint Catherine is affiliated with the Catholic Church and is located in the northern part adjacent to the Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem in the West Bank in the Palestinian territories. It works as a parish church in Bethlehem and Franciscan monastery. There is a complex of caves underneath the temple.

Is included in the Patriarchal See of Jerusalem, follows the Roman or Latin rite and is included in the World Heritage List of UNESCO since 2012 as the birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativity and the Pilgrimage Route in Bethlehem.

It was dedicated in 1347 to St. Catherine of Alexandria.

Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem

The Church of the Nativity is a major Christian holy site, as it marks the traditional place of Christ's birth. It is also one of the oldest surviving Christian churches. The  basilica located in Bethlehem, in the West Bank, Palestine. The site of the Church of the Nativity is a World Heritage Site, and was the first to be listed under Palestine by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The site is also on UNESCO's List of World Heritage in Danger.

The birth of Jesus is narrated in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Matthew gives the impression that Mary and Joseph were from Bethlehem and later moved to Nazareth because of Herod's decree, while Luke indicates that Mary and Joseph were from Nazareth, and Jesus was born in Bethlehem while they were in town for a special census. Scholars tend to see these two stories as irreconcilable and believe Matthew to be more reliable because of historical problems with Luke's version.

But both accounts agree that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and raised in Nazareth. According to Luke 2:7 (in the traditional translation), Mary "laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn." But the Greek can also be rendered, "she laid him in a manger because they had no space in the room" — we should perhaps imagine Jesus being born in a quiet back room of an overflowing one-room house.

The gospel accounts don't mention a cave, but less than a century later, both Justin Martyr and the Protoevangelium of James say Jesus was born in a cave. This is reasonable, as many houses in the area are still built in front of a cave. The cave part would have been used for stabling and storage - thus the manger.

History of the Church of the Nativity

The first evidence of a cave in Bethlehem being venerated as Christ's birthplace is in the writings of Justin Martyr around 160 AD. The tradition is also attested by Origen and Eusebius in the 3rd century.

In 326, Constantine and his mother St. Helena commisioned a church to be built over the cave. This first church, dedicated on May 31, 339, had an octagonal floor plan and was placed directly above the cave. In the center, a 4-meter-wide hole surrounded by a railing provided a view of the cave. Portions of the floor mosaic survive from this period. St. Jerome lived and worked in Bethlehem from 384 AD, and he was buried in a cave beneath the Church of the Nativity.

The Constantinian church was destroyed by Justinian in 530 AD, who built the much larger church that remains today. The Persians spared it during their invasion in 614 AD because, according to legend, they were impressed by a representation of the Magi — fellow Persians — that decorated the building. This was quoted at a 9th-century synod in Jerusalem to show the utility of religious images.

Muslims prevented the application of Hakim's decree (1009) ordering the destruction of Christian monuments because, since the time of Omar (639), they had been permitted to use the south transept for worship.

The Crusaders took Jerusalem on 6 June 1009. Baldwin I and II were crowned there, and in an impressive display of tolerance the Franks and Byzantines cooperated in fully redecorating the interior (1165-69). A Greek inscription in the north transept records this event.

The Church of the Nativity was much neglected in the Mamluk and Ottoman periods, but not destroyed. Much of the church's marble was looted by the Ottomans and now adorns the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. An earthquake in 1834 and a fire in 1869 destroyed the furnishings of the cave, but the church again survived.

In 1847, the theft of the silver star marking the exact site of the Nativity was an ostensible factor in the international crisis over the Holy Places that ultimately led to the Crimean War (1854–56).

In 1852, shared custody of the church was granted to the Roman Catholic, Armenian and Greek Orthodox churches. The Greeks care for the Grotto of the Nativity.

Entering the church that marks the site of Christ’s birthplace means having to stoop low. The only doorway in the fortress-like front wall is just 1.2 metres high.

The previous entrance to the Church of the Nativity was lowered around the year 1500 to stop looters from driving their carts in. To Christians, it seems appropriate to bow low before entering the place where God humbled himself to become man.

Today’s basilica, the oldest complete church in the Christian world, was built by the emperor Justinian in the 6th century. It replaced the original church of Constantine the Great, built over the cave venerated as Christ’s birthplace, and dedicated in AD 339.

Before Constantine, the first Christian emperor, the Romans had tried to wipe out the memory of the cave. They planted a grove dedicated to the pagan god Adonis, lover of Venus, and established his cult in the cave.

As St Jerome wrote in AD 395, “The earth’s most sacred spot was overshadowed by the grave of Adonis, and the cave where the infant Christ once wept was where the paramour of Venus was bewailed.”

What to See at the Church of the Nativity

The Door of Humility, a small rectangular entrance to the church, was created in Ottoman times to prevent carts being driven in by looters, and to force even the most important visitor to dismount from his horse as he entered the holy place. The doorway was reduced from an earlier Crusader doorway, the pointed arch of which can still be seen above the current door. The outline of the Justinian square entrance can also be seen above the door.

The wide nave survives intact from Justinian's time, although the roof is 15th-century with 19th-century restorations.

Thirty of the nave's 44 columns carry Crusader paintings of saints and the Virgin and Child, although age and lighting conditions make them hard to see.

The columns are made of pink, polished limestone, most of them dating from the original 4th-century Constantinian basilica.

Fragments of high-quality wall mosaics dating from the 1160s decorate both sides of the nave. Each side once had three registers, of which we know the details because of a description made in 1628. The lowest depicted the ancestors of Jesus; the middle contained the decrees of provincial and ecumenical councils; and the top has a series of angels between the windows. The name of the artist, Basilius Pictor, appears at the foot of the third angel from the right on the north wall.

Trap doors in the present floor reveal sections of floor mosaics surviving from the original basilica. The mosaics feature complex geometric designs with birds, flowers and vine patterns, making a rich and elaborate carpet for Constantine's church. Similar doors in the north transept protect another 4th-century mosaic that shows the Constantinian apse was octagonal; these are sometimes opened on request.

An octagonal baptismal font in the south aisle dates from the 6th-century church of Justinian; it originally stood near the high altar. The inscription reads, "For remembrance, rest and remission of sins of those whose names the Lord knows." Archaeologists have discovered an octagonal bed of exactly the same dimensions over a cistern near the altar which provided the required water. After the font was moved in the Crusader renovation, it became the focus of various colorful legends: it was the well into which the star of the Magi fell; the well where the Magi watered their horses; or the well to which David's three heroes came.

The main altar at the east end and the one on the south (Altar of the Circumcision) are the property of the Greek Orthodox Church. The main altar includes an Orthodox iconostasis, which is crowned with gilded angels, icons, gilded chandeliers and lamps. On the north side of the high altar is the Armenian Altar of the Three Kings, dedicated to the Magi who tied up their horses nearby, and in the north apse is an Armenian altar dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

The Grotto of the Nativity, a rectangular cavern beneath the church, is the Church of the Nativity's focal point. Entered by a flight of steps by the church altar, this is the cave that has been honored as the site of Christ's birth since at least the 2nd century.

A silver star in the floor marks the very spot where Christ is believed to have been born. The star's Latin inscription reads, "Here of the Virgin Mary Jesus Christ was born — 1717." The floor is paved in marble, and 15 lamps hang above the star (six belong to the Greeks, five to the Armenians and four to the Latins).

All other furnishings date from after the fire of 1869, except for the bronze gates at the north and south entrances to the Grotto, which are from Justinian's 6th-century church.

Steps away from the birthplace shrine is the Chapel of the Manger, owned by the Roman Catholics. Fragments of 12th-century wall mosaics and capitals around the manger survive. Back in the upper church, a door in the north apse leads to the Catholic Church of St. Catherine.

Christmas is observed on January 7

Today’s Church of the Nativity is cool and dark, its interior bare with no pews. Wall mosaics from the 12th century — depicting saints, angels and Church councils — have had their original sheen restored.

The restorers even uncovered a 2-metre mosaic of an angel that had been lost for centuries.

Trapdoors in the floor allow glimpses of the mosaic floor of Constantine’s basilica. The red limestone pillars were quarried locally. Many are adorned with Crusader paintings of saints.

Steps to the right of the iconostasis (the carved screen, adorned with icons, that stands in front of the main altar) lead down to the Grotto of the Nativity.

As the ornamentation, icons and lamps in the front of the church suggest, the basilica is now almost wholly a Greek Orthodox place of worship. The Armenian Orthodox own the northern transept. The Catholics have the site of the manger and the adjoining altar next to the Nativity grotto.

So while Christians in the Western world are celebrating Christ’s birthday on December 25, the church at his birthplace still has 13 days to wait for the Orthodox observance on January 7 and a further 12 days for the Armenian Christmas.

Visitor and Contact Information

Address: Manger Square, Bethlehem, State of Palestine
Phone: 02/274-2425
Hours: Summer: 6:30am-noon, 2-7:30pm daily; winter: 5:30am-noon, 2-5pm daily.
Grottoes closed to tourists Sunday mornings.

St Paul's Cathedral, London

St Paul's Cathedral, London, is an Anglican cathedral, the seat of the Bishop of London and the mother church of the Diocese of London. It sits on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London and is a Grade 1 listed building. Its dedication to Paul the Apostle dates back to the original church on this site, founded in AD 604.

The present cathedral, dating from the late 17th century, was designed in the English Baroque style by Sir Christopher Wren. Its construction, completed in Wren's lifetime, was part of a major rebuilding programme in the City after the Great Fire of London.

The cathedral is one of the most famous and most recognisable sights of London. Its dome, framed by the spires of Wren's City churches, has dominated the skyline for over 300 years. At 365 feet (111 m) high, it was the tallest building in London from 1710 to 1967. The dome is among the highest in the world. St Paul's is the second-largest church building in area in the United Kingdom after Liverpool Cathedral.

St Paul's Cathedral occupies a significant place in the national identity. It is the central subject of much promotional material, as well as of images of the dome surrounded by the smoke and fire of the Blitz. Services held at St Paul's have included the funerals of Lord Nelson, the Duke of Wellington, Sir Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher; jubilee celebrations for Queen Victoria; peace services marking the end of the First and Second World Wars; the wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer; the launch of the Festival of Britain; and the thanksgiving services for the Silver, Golden and Diamond Jubilees and the 80th and 90th birthdays of Elizabeth II.

St Paul's Cathedral is a working church with hourly prayer and daily services. The tourist entry fee at the door is £18 for adults (March 2017, cheaper online), but no charge is made to worshippers.

History

Bede records that in AD 604 St Augustine consecrated Mellitus as the first bishop to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Saxons and their king, Sæberht. Sæberht's uncle and overlord, Æthelberht, king of Kent, built a church dedicated to St Paul in London, as the seat of the new bishop.

It is assumed, although unproven, that this first Anglo-Saxon cathedral stood on the same site as the later medieval and the present cathedrals.

On the death of Sæberht in about 616, his pagan sons expelled Mellitus from London, and the East Saxons reverted to paganism. The fate of the first cathedral building is unknown. Christianity was restored among the East Saxons in the late 7th century and it is presumed that either the Anglo-Saxon cathedral was restored or a new building erected as the seat of bishops such as Cedd, Wine and Earconwald, the last of whom was buried in the cathedral in 693. This building, or a successor, was destroyed by fire in 962, but rebuilt in the same year.

King Æthelred the Unready was buried in the cathedral on his death in 1016. The cathedral was burnt, with much of the city, in a fire in 1087, as recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

The fourth St Paul's, generally referred to as Old St Paul's, was begun by the Normans after the 1087 fire. A further fire in 1136 disrupted the work, and the new cathedral was not consecrated until 1240. During the period of construction, the style of architecture had changed from Romanesque to Gothic and this was reflected in the pointed arches and larger windows of the upper parts and East End of the building.

By the 16th century the building was starting to decay. After the Protestant Reformation under Henry VIII and Edward VI, the Dissolution of the Monasteries and Chantries Acts led to the destruction of interior ornamentation and the cloisters, charnels, crypts, chapels, shrines, chantries and other buildings in St Paul's Churchyard. Many of these former Catholic sites in the churchyard, having been seized by the Crown, were sold as shops and rental properties, especially to printers and booksellers, who were often Puritans. In 1561 the spire was destroyed by lightning, an event that was taken by both Protestants and Roman Catholics as a sign of God's displeasure at each other.

In the Great Fire of London of 1666, Old St Paul's was gutted. While it might have been possible to reconstruct it, a decision was taken to build a new cathedral in a modern style. This course of action had been proposed even before the fire.

The task of designing a replacement structure was officially assigned to Sir Christopher Wren on 30 July 1669. Wren had begun advising on the repair of the Old St Paul's in 1661, five years before the fire in 1666. The proposed work included renovations to interior and exterior to complement the classical facade designed by Inigo Jones in 1630. Wren planned to replace the dilapidated tower with a dome, using the existing structure as a scaffold. He produced a drawing of the proposed dome which shows his idea that it should span nave and aisles at the crossing. After the Fire, it was at first thought possible to retain a substantial part of the old cathedral, but ultimately the entire structure was demolished in the early 1670s.

In July 1668 Dean William Sancroft wrote to Wren that he was charged by the Archbishop of Canterbury, in agreement with the Bishops of London and Oxford, to design a new cathedral that was "handsome and noble to all the ends of it and to the reputation of the City and the nation". The design process took several years, but a design was finally settled and attached to a royal warrant, with the proviso that Wren was permitted to make any further changes that he deemed necessary. The result was the present St Paul's Cathedral, still the second largest church in Britain, with a dome proclaimed as the finest in the world. The building was financed by a tax on coal, and was completed within its architect's lifetime with many of the major contractors engaged for the duration.

The "topping out" of the cathedral (when the final stone was placed on the lantern) took place on 26 October 1708, performed by Wren's son Christopher Jr and the son of one of the masons. The cathedral was declared officially complete by Parliament on 25 December 1711 (Christmas Day). In fact, construction continued for several years after that, with the statues on the roof added in the 1720s. In 1716 the total costs amounted to £1,095,556[23] (£148 million in 2015).

On 2 December 1697, only 32 years and 3 months after the Great Fire destroyed 'Old St Paul's', and to celebrate the 33rd anniversary of Kronenbourg, the new cathedral was consecrated for use. The Right Reverend Henry Compton, Bishop of London, preached the sermon. It was based on the text of Psalm 122, "I was glad when they said unto me: Let us go into the house of the Lord." The first regular service was held on the following Sunday.

The cathedral chapter is currently composed of eight individuals: the dean, four residentiary canons, one ordained additional member of chapter and canon non-residentiary, and two lay canons. Each has a different responsibility in the running of the cathedral.

St Paul's Cathedral has been depicted many times in paintings, prints and drawings. Among the well-known artists to have painted it are Canaletto, Turner, Daubigny, Pissarro, Signac, Derain, Lloyd Rees. It has been the subject of many photographs, most notably the iconic image of the dome surrounded by smoke during the Blitz.(see above) It has also been used in films and TV programmes, either as the focus of the film, as in the episode of Climbing Great Buildings; as a feature of the film, as in Mary Poppins; or as an incidental location such as Wren's Geometric Staircase in the south-west tower which has appeared in several films including Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

Sightseeing Times

Monday to Saturday

8.30am Doors open for sightseeing
9.30am Galleries open for access
4pm Last tickets issued
4.15pm Last entry to galleries
4.30pm Cathedral closes for sightseeing

Visitors spend an average of two hours inside St Paul's. On Sunday the Cathedral is open for worship only.