The Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC, will return a rare 10th-11th-century hand-written gospel manuscript to the Kosinitza Monastery in northern Greece. The document was looted from the site by Bulgarian troops during the first world war. The museum informed the office of office of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the world leader of the Eastern Orthodox Church that they have the rare document, and offered to return it:
According to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency, the patriarch has permitted the museum to display the work until October 2021, and loaned it three more manuscripts as a gesture of gratitude for the gospels’ return.
In recent years, the Museum of the Bible’s collection, originally owned by the Green family in Oklahoma City, founders of the arts and crafts chain Hobby Lobby, has been found to hold many objects that were smuggled out of their countries of origin or brought into the US improperly. The museum, which opened in 2017 in a massive former refrigerated warehouse south of the National Mall, has started to more thoroughly investigate its collection and has returned other antiquities. Now closed, the museum had a pre-pandemic attendance of one million visitors per year.
The Eikosiphoinissa Manuscript 220 was among 431 manuscripts and 470 other works pillaged from the monastery’s library, including icons, vestments and liturgical objects.
image via the Art Newspaper
Sounds like they work for the Redundancy Department of Redundancies.