The Muscovite further arranged that a caravan bearing food should be annually despatched from Cairo to the convent, at his expense, as we learn from the account of the German pilgrim Wormbser, who went from Egypt to the convent in the year 1561 (_Reissbuch_, 1609, p. 396 ff.). His companion, Count Loewenstein, on his return to Alexandria, there asked for an official attestation of having been the Long Pilgrimage, which he included in the account of his journey (_Ibid._, p. 393). These travellers in 1561 found between thirty and forty monks at the convent, but were told that these sometimes left the place altogether because of the clamorous Arabs (Loewenstein, p. 369). It had recently stood empty four or five years (_Ibid._, p. 369). Another party of Germans, who reached the convent in 1565, actually found it empty and its gates walled up. They were met outside by a monk who, apprized of their coming, hurried over from Tur to act as their guide. From the height of the Mount of the Law they looked down on the empty convent with its deserted garden (_Ibid._, Helfferich, p. 726). Owing to Muscovite influence a change was effected. A letter is extant drafted by Jeremiah II, patriarch of Constantinople (1572-78), which bears the signature of the patriarch of Antioch, the patriarch of Jerusalem, and others by which the bishopric of Sinai was restored.[290] The decision was based on the decree of Justinian which is dated to the year 551 and is preserved at the convent, but which is looked upon as a forgery. Anyhow, a prelate was reinstated in the person of Eugenius (1565-83), who, in the capacity of “bishop of Sinai and Raithou,” wrote to Emperor Maximilian II (1564-76), declaring that the monks were called upon to pay 5000 ducats to the Turkish Sultan, which were they unable to raise. The outcome of the appeal is not recorded. They probably made an appeal also to King Henri III of France (1574-89).[291] In the year 1579 Eugenius of Sinai was in Jerusalem, where the patriarch Germanus abdicated because of old age.[292]