Hyde Park Seminary Returns Ancient New Testament

A small seminary handed over a 1,100-year-old text of the New Testament to the Greek Orthodox Church this morning according to the Chicago Tribune and ABC-7 Chicago.

The Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago handed over the 337-page lambskin manuscript to the American branch of the Greek Orthodox Church. Archbishop Demetrios was in Chicago to receive the manuscript and return it to Greece.

Bulgarian guerillas stole the manuscript from a monastery in northern Greece in 1917 before it ended up in Chicago. The Greek Orthodox Church tracked down the ancient text and requested that it be returned.

The staff of the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago said the decision to return the manuscript was unanimous. School president, James Nieman, said they would not be accepting any compensation to return the religious text to its rightful home.

There are only 60 known complete handwritten Greek New Testaments from the 9th century. Images of the ancient manuscript can be seen at the website of The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts.

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