Ostrih Bible Acquired by the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library

COLLEGEVILLE, Minnesota -- The Rev. Columba Stewart, OSB, executive director of the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (HMML), has announced that HMML has acquired two new books of critical importance for its already outstanding collection of rare books and manuscripts:

The Ostrih Bible, sometimes known as the “Slavonic Gutenberg,” is the first complete printed Bible in Church Slavonic, the common liturgical language of Slavic Christianity. Printed in the Ukraine in 1581, this was in its day by far the largest Cyrillic printing project ever undertaken. Edited and printed under Orthodox auspices, the Ostrih Bible (sometimes called Ostrog after the Russian form of the place name) seems to have been deliberately designed for both Orthodox and Catholic readers, as its arrangements of the biblical books has features of both traditions. It has been suggested that the motivation for its publication was to unite Orthodox and Catholics in opposition to the inroads of Calvinism in the western Slavic world, giving the older religious traditions a Bible they could use in refuting the Protestant claim that they had neglected the Bible in favor of other religious texts.

The HMML copy was originally owned by the Orthodox Bishop of L’viv, Ukraine, Hedeon Balaban (bp. 1569-1607), and was only recently discovered in northern Romania by a European bookseller. This is an extremely rare book, with only a handful of copies in North America. HMML’s copy is in unusually good condition: most copies are very worn, and often are missing pages. For more information see: http://hmml.org/happenings06/happenings.htm

Andrew Louth, Prolific Church Historian & Priest

The prolific church historian and priest, Father Andrew Louth, discusses in the New Statesman Orthodoxy and the Russian Orthodox Church.

See: http://www.newstatesman.com/writers/andrew_louth

Andrew Louth was ordained a priest of the Russian Orthodox Patriarchal Diocese of Sourozh four years ago and serves a parish in Durham. He is also Professor of Patristic and Byzantine Studies in Durham University.

Blackwell Companion to Eastern Christianity (2007)

"This latest addition to the Blackwell Companion series constitutes the most comprehensive, authoritative and elegant account of the Eastern Churches ever published. Its twenty-four chapters, each the work of a specialist, combine full accounts of the history and life of each church with a series of outstanding surveys of their liturgical, iconographical and hagiographical traditions. The surveys of Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox liturgies are a formidable achievement and will be invaluable to students of liturgy eastern and western.This work is a definitive synthesis which will stimulate interest in the Eastern Churches at a time when many of them are under threat because of political upheavals. It will also provide a starting point for the further study of their fascinating traditions. Scholarship will long be in the debt of Ken Parry, the editor and organizing mind behind this wonderful collection." John Healey, University of Manchester

For more information see: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/book.asp?ref=9780631234234

Complete Orthodox Study Bible Now Available!

The Orthodox Study Bible, created by The Orthodox Study Bible Old Testament Project and published by Thomas Nelson, will soon be available from Conciliar Press. It uses the New King James Version of the Bible as the basis for a fresh translation of the Septuagint text. The Septuagint is the Greek version of the Bible used by Christ, the Apostles, and the early church.

For more information on the project and how to order see: http://orthodoxstudybible.com/ & http://www.lxx.org/