The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, His All Holiness Bartholomew I, on Tuesday received a delegation led by Steve Green, the founder and board chairman of the Washington D.C.-based Museum of the Bible.
Members of the delegation included Dr. Jeffrey Kloha, the museum’s chief curator, Dr. Brian Hyland, the associate curator of medieval manuscripts, and Prof. Elizabeth Prodromou, a member of the museum’s advisory board.
The meeting at the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s see took place on the occasion of landmark cooperation between the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the US Foundation, and ahead of today’s official repatriation ceremony for the Evangelistary Manuscript 220.
The ceremony was held at the Patriarchal and Stavropegic Monastery of Eikosifinissa, outside the city of Drama in northern Greece, from where the manuscript was stolen by the Bulgarian military in 1917 along with many other priceless ecclesiastical artifacts and manuscripts.
The ceremony was dedicated to the memory of recently reposed Metropolitan of Drama Pavlos.
The 11th century Greek-language manuscript has already been returned to the monastery, as of late August 2022, where it is preserved.
His All-Holiness thanked the Museum’s leadership for the fruitful and substantial collaboration with the Ecumenical Patriarchate, praising it, once again, for the return of the Evangelistary manuscript, and noted that this is an act worthy of imitation.