An embellished hand-lettered Greek-language manuscript of the Gospels will return to a Greek Orthodox monastery Thursday, 105 years after foreign forces stole it during World War I, the Museum of the Bible said Wednesday evening.
“It is a true blessing for the monastic sisterhood and the Christian world to see the religious artifacts that were removed from the Monastery officially return to their natural home and used hereafter for the spiritual edification of the faithful, and by art and history scholars,” Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the leader of the Orthodox Church worldwide, said in a statement released by the museum.