Actually the monastics of St. Katherine's recieved the pope and his entourage soley as pilgrims. In fact the Sunday February 27, 2000 issue of the New York Times reported on the papal visit with a photo of the embrace between the roman pope and Archbishop Damanios but right under the caption read "Archbishop Damanios abbot of the Greek Orthodox Monastery at Mt Sinai, embraced the pope as he arrived, but he did not pray with him. ' It is impossible, it is against our canon law ', the archbishop explained'.
The article went on to say how the roman pope hoped to convene christian, jewish and muslim leaders at the site to symbolize reconcilliation in the new millenium but the plan was scrapped because the Sinai Monks completely denounced the idea. Archbishop Damianos went on to say that such a dialogue should never even take place in a muslim country because of the "mentality of the people". The Times reporter also explained that Orthodoxy does not view these other groups on par with Orthodoxy.
The Times article went on to say that Archbishop Damanios in his address only referred to the roman pope as the "President of the Roman catholic church" never calling him bishop or pope.
This article can be looked up in most libraries i have given the date of it and its found under the International section of the NY Times.
And on a side note the babylon refered to in Rev 17-18 is not Jerusalem but the new babylon which at the time was Rome.