{"id":207047,"date":"2018-09-18T15:13:25","date_gmt":"2018-09-18T12:13:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/basilica.ro\/?p=207047"},"modified":"2018-09-18T15:13:25","modified_gmt":"2018-09-18T12:13:25","slug":"greek-orthodox-church-attempting-to-reclaim-centuries-old-manuscripts-in-u-s-collections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/greek-orthodox-church-attempting-to-reclaim-centuries-old-manuscripts-in-u-s-collections\/","title":{"rendered":"Greek Orthodox Church Attempting to Reclaim Centuries-Old Manuscripts in U.S. Collections"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than a century after being removed from a historic monastery in northern Greece, rare ninth-century Christian manuscripts have been located in the United States, where a team representing the Greek Orthodox Church is waging a tiresome legal battle to return them to the library from which they were taken, pappaspost.com informs<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

At the moment, eight of the sacred manuscripts sit among the library collections of three prestigious U.S. institutions \u2014 Princeton University, Duke University, and the Morgan Library in New York City.<\/p>\n

However, long before becoming pieces of American collections, these documents once resided in the Kosinitza Monastery \u2014 one of Greece\u2019s oldest and most important Orthodox Christian religious sanctuaries \u2014 located in the northern region of Macedonia.<\/p>\n

Also known as Panagia Eikosiphoinissa (\u201ctwenty palm trees\u201d in Greek), the monastery was built in 400 AD just outside the city of Drama and has a turbulent history including several massacres of monks, destruction of its buildings \u2014 and theft of the extremely rare manuscripts.<\/p>\n

In March 1917, as World War I was raging throughout Europe, a group of Bulgarian militants raided the monastery and stole the entire contents of its library, which had been filled with holy texts that included the oldest complete version of the New Testament in existence.<\/p>\n

Before the looting, the library housed 1300 volumes, 430 of which were highly-valuable manuscripts. Many of the volumes dated back more than 1,000 years and were sold across Europe to various book dealers and collectors and never recovered.<\/p>\n

Attorney George Tsougarakis \u2014 a partner with Hughes Hubbard & Reed, a New York City-based firm that is handling the recovery of the manuscripts on a pro bono basis on behalf of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople \u2014 said that his legal team has contacted each American institution to ask for the manuscripts\u2019 return.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we\u2019ve had long discussions with each of them, and while they haven\u2019t said no yet, they also haven\u2019t said that they would return the items either,\u201d Tsougarakis told The Pappas Post.<\/p>\n

He said the monastery has firm legal grounds to support the manuscripts\u2019 return, as a thief cannot pass ownership to other buyers, which would mean that the institutions do not have legitimate claims of ownership.<\/p>\n

Two years ago \u2014 in addition to Princeton, Duke and the Morgan \u2014 a fourth American institution also held another valuable manuscript from the monastery, but its handling of the document starkly contrasts with how the three institutions in question are handling their own.<\/p>\n

The Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago had what turned out to be the oldest complete version of the New Testament, handwritten in Greek \u2014 one of only 60 such documents in the world. Ending up in a faraway collection, the sacred text had shared the same fate as the others that had been taken from the monastery one century earlier.<\/p>\n

In November 2016, however, the Lutheran theologians\u00a0made a historic gesture by promptly returning the New Testament\u00a0after a request from Greek Orthodox Church officials, giving up the 337-page document that was \u2014 by far \u2014 \u00a0the most prized and sacred item in the school\u2019s collection.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is why the Lutheran School\u2019s decision to return [the book] was such a sacrifice,\u201d Fr. Alex Karloutsos said. \u201cAnd [that is] why it stands in stark contrast to responses by the other institutions we contacted regarding the remaining eight volumes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Karloutsos, who handles various public and government affairs matters on behalf of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, is working closely with Tsougarakis to recover the remaining manuscripts and uses the Lutheran School\u2019s example as one for the other American institutions to follow.<\/p>\n

Karloutsos added that the school\u2019s gesture also provides \u201can interesting perspective,\u201d saying that Princeton, Duke and the Morgan are \u201cfar wealthier\u201d and \u201ccertainly don\u2019t worship the manuscripts\u201d as the Lutheran School worshipped its New Testament.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter receiving a single letter from us, the Lutheran School immediately did the right thing,\u201d he said. \u201cThe others have not. Why not?\u201d<\/p>\n

Princeton\u2019s Acting University Spokesperson Michael Hotchkiss said the school is \u201csensitive\u201d to the Greek Orthodox Church\u2019s concerns and that it is \u201ccommitted\u201d to ensuring that the manuscripts have been properly obtained.<\/p>\n

He said, however, that the university has \u201ccarefully reviewed\u201d the information provided by the Patriarchate and has also been conducting its own research on the issue since late 2015.<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on the information available to us,\u201d Hotchkiss told The Pappas Post in a written statement, \u201cWe have found no basis to conclude that the manuscripts in our possession were looted during World War I, or otherwise improperly removed\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

The spokesman added that Princeton will continue to give \u201cprompt and meaningful consideration\u201d to any other evidence.<\/p>\n

The Morgan Library Manager of Communications Shaili Shah was also contacted by The Pappas Post and said the library\u2019s administration had no comment at the time.<\/p>\n

Finally, Duke University had not responded to requests for comment at the time of this article\u2019s publication.<\/p>\n

In response to Princeton\u2019s claims that it had not found evidence that the manuscripts were stolen, Karloutsos told The Pappas Post that the university can find such evidence on its own campus.<\/p>\n

For example, Princeton professors Dimitri Gondicas and Don C. Skemer wrote in the preface to the \u201cGreek Manuscripts at Princeton, Sixth to Nineteenth Century: A Descriptive Catalogue\u201d (2010) that \u201call of the monastery\u2019s manuscripts were removed from its library and taken to Sofia by the Bulgarian authorities in 1917.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gondicas, executive director of Hellenic Studies, and Skemer, curator of manuscripts at the university library, both describe Princeton\u2019s own collection of Kosinitza manuscripts as being \u201cremoved\u201d from the library by Bulgarian authorities.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone who argues that the word \u2018remove\u2019 doesn\u2019t mean \u2018stolen\u2019 surely has a mistaken view of history,\u201d Karloutsos said. \u201cThe monks at the monastery clearly didn\u2019t invite the Bulgarian authorities into their sacred home during the peak of World War I and offer these cherished volumes as gifts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Karloutsos added that, in the same manuscript catalogue, Princeton provides extensive additional evidence from other sources that the manuscripts were part of the monastery\u2019s collection and illegally looted in 1917.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the circumstances of the Great War and the plethora of published information available, the evidence clearly supports that the unauthorized taking of the manuscripts by the Bulgarian authorities was a theft \u2014 plain and simple \u2014 we know it, and Princeton knows it,\u201d Karloutsos said.<\/p>\n

Tsougarakis said he thinks that institutions with valuable historical items often hesitate to give them back because it could set a precedent, leading to even more returns and possibly depleting a vast part of their collections.<\/p>\n

Various Greek diaspora organizations have shown support for the church in its effort to re-obtain the documents, as the Hellenic American Leadership Council in Chicago started a\u00a0petition<\/a>\u00a0for supporters to sign.<\/p>\n

Karloutsos said he has hope that the institutions will make the \u201cright choice,\u201d citing a similar example of Nazi-stolen art being returned to families of Jewish collectors who had been victimized during World War II.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Like that case] we believe that this case is also egregious and hope that Princeton, Duke and the Morgan will ultimately do the right thing and return the manuscripts,\u201d he said. \u201cUntil then, it\u2019s a bit of a mystery why they won\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photo credit: The Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More than a century after being removed from a historic monastery in northern Greece, rare ninth-century Christian manuscripts have been located in the United States, where a team representing the Greek Orthodox Church is waging a tiresome legal battle to return them to the library from which they were taken, pappaspost.com informs. At the moment,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":207046,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-207047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-autocephalous-orthodox-churches"],"better_featured_image":{"id":207046,"alt_text":"","caption":"","description":"","media_type":"image","media_details":{"width":1170,"height":780,"file":"2018\/09\/manuscrise.jpg","sizes":{"thumbnail":{"file":"manuscrise-360x360.jpg","width":360,"height":360,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/manuscrise-360x360.jpg"},"medium":{"file":"manuscrise-890x593.jpg","width":890,"height":593,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/manuscrise-890x593.jpg"},"large":{"file":"manuscrise-1024x683.jpg","width":1024,"height":683,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/manuscrise-1024x683.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1","keywords":[]}},"post":207047,"source_url":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/manuscrise.jpg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207047\/"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post\/"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4\/"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments\/?post=207047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207047\/revisions\/"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207046\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/?parent=207047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories\/?post=207047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags\/?post=207047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}