The Church of Sinai

 is in some ways a .freak. in the Orthodox world, consisting as it does in a

single monastery, Saint Catherine.s, at the foot of the Mountain of Moses. There is some dis-

agreement about whether the monastery should  be termed an  .autocephalous. or merely  an

.autonomous. Church (see p. 314). The abbot, who is always an archbishop, is elected by the

monks and consecrated by the Patriarch of Jerusalem; the monastery is entirely independent of

outside control. Sad to say, there are today fewer than twenty monks.