Burning bush in the context of "Book of Exodus"

Saint Catherine's Monastery (Arabic: دير القدّيسة كاترين Dayr al-Qiddīsa Katrīn, Greek: Ιερά Μονή Αγίας Αικατερίνης Όρους Σινά, romanized: Iërá Moní Ayías Ekaterínis Órus Siná), officially the Sacred Autonomous Royal Monastery of Saint Catherine of the Holy and God-Trodden Mount Sinai, is a Christian monastery located in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt. Located at the foot of Mount Sinai, it was built between 548 and 565, and is the world's oldest continuously inhabited Christian monastery.

The monastery was built by order of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I, enclosing what is claimed to be the burning bush seen by Moses. Centuries later, the purported body of Catherine of Alexandria, said to have been found in the area, was taken to the monastery; Catherine's relics turned it into an important Christian pilgrimage, and the monastery was eventually renamed after the saint.

In Abrahamic religions, Moses was the Hebrew prophet who led the Israelites out of slavery in the Exodus from Egypt. He is considered the most important prophet in Judaism and Samaritanism, and one of the most important prophets in Christianity, Islam, the Baháʼí Faith, and other Abrahamic religions. According to the Abrahamic scriptures, God dictated the Mosaic Law to Moses, which he wrote down and which formed part of the Torah.

According to the Book of Exodus, Moses was born in a period when his people, the Israelites, who were an enslaved minority, were increasing in population; consequently, the Egyptian Pharaoh was worried that they might ally themselves with Egypt's enemies. When Pharaoh ordered all newborn Hebrew boys to be killed in order to reduce the population of the Israelites, Moses' Hebrew mother, Jochebed, secretly hid him in the bulrushes along the Nile river. The Pharaoh's daughter discovered the infant there and adopted him as a foundling. Thus, he grew up with the Egyptian royal family. After killing an Egyptian slave-master who was beating a Hebrew, Moses fled across the Red Sea to Midian, where he encountered the Angel of the Lord, speaking to him from within a burning bush on Mount Horeb.

Presbyterianism (pres-bə-TE-ree-a-nizm) is a historically Reformed Protestant tradition named after its form of church government by representative assemblies of elders, known as "presbyters". Though other Reformed churches are structurally similar, the word Presbyterian is applied to churches that trace their roots to the Church of Scotland or to English Dissenter groups that were formed during the English Civil War, 1642 to 1651.

Presbyterian theology typically emphasises the sovereignty of God, the authority of the Scriptures, and the necessity of grace through faith in Christ. Scotland ensured Presbyterian church government in the 1707 Acts of Union, which created the Kingdom of Great Britain. In fact, most Presbyterians in England have a Scottish connection. The Presbyterian denomination was also taken to North America, Australia, and New Zealand, mostly by Scots and Scots-Irish immigrants. Scotland's Presbyterian denominations hold to the Reformed theology of John Calvin and his immediate successors, although there is a range of theological views within contemporary Presbyterianism. Local congregations of churches that use Presbyterian polity are governed by sessions made up of representatives of the congregation (elders), a conciliar approach as with other levels of decision-making (presbytery, synod, and general assembly). There are roughly 75 million Presbyterians in the world.

Sébastien Bourdon (French pronunciation: [sebastjɛ̃ buʁdɔ̃]; 2 February 1616 – 8 May 1671) was a French painter and engraver. His chef d'œuvre is The Crucifixion of St. Peter made for the cathedral of Notre Dame.