U.S. Lutheran seminary returns rare manuscript to Greek Orthodox Church

It was an “act of ecumenism” and a true gift—since the giver could not receive anything of equal value in return.

That’s how Archbishop Demetrios, head of the Greek Orthodox Church in America, and James Nieman, president of the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, described the school’s decision to send a ninth-century New Testament manuscript back to the Greek monastery where it resided for centuries.

A scribe in Constantinople wrote the scriptures on sheepskin in minuscule cursive script. It is the oldest complete New Testament manuscript in that style. In the 12th century the codex joined a repository of more than 400 documents near Drama, Greece.