Of the bishops at this period we know very little. There was an interregnum of about thirty years before 1540, which may be connected with the rule of Sultan Selim. According to information preserved at the convent, he abstracted the original _firmân_ which was supposed to have been given to the convent by Mohammad. Sultan Selim was responsible for the fortified stations along the route for pilgrims from Egypt to Mecca, of which one was built at Ajrud near Suez, the second at Nakhl, on the high desert, and the third at Akaba, which was situated east of the ancient Aila. These stations were reckoned about three days’ journey from one another, and the road continued in use till recent times. But whatever the reason, the bishop of Sinai at this time incurred the displeasure of the surrounding prelates. Marcus, the Cyprian, who was appointed in 1540, perhaps owing to some fault of his own (Nectarius called him κάκος),[287] was deposed by a synod held in Egypt under the auspices of the patriarchs of Alexandria, of Cairo, and of Jerusalem, and the bishopric of Sinai was declared abrogated.[288] But a new protector to the monks now arose in the Tsar of Muscovy, who, when Constantinople fell to the Turks, took it upon himself to protect the orthodox. In the year 1547 Gregorius, a monk of Sinai, visited Moscow, where he complained of the tax which the Turk levied on the convent. The Tsar at the time was Ivan the Terrible (1533-84), who forthwith arranged that Gennadius, archdeacon of St. Sophia, at Novgorod, together with the merchant Posniakow and another should visit the patriarch of Alexandria and the archbishop (_sic_) of Sinai, and present them with 1000 ducats each. At the convent, after praying at the shrine of St. Katherine, they spread over it a covering of gold brocade, a gift of the Tsar. Posniakow, to whom we owe an account of the embassy, looked upon the monks as connected with St. Basil, and described the mosque inside the convent as originally a church of St. Basil.[289]