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publicorthodoxy.org - Tuesday, November 15^th, 2016 was a momentous occasion for inter-Christian relations and for the history of the New Testament (NT). An important 9^th century AD Greek NT codex that had been stolen in 1917 from the Monastery of Panagia Eikosiphoinissa near Drama, Greece was officially returned to the custody of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in the person of His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios of America. The codex, known as Codex 1424, will soon be taken by Archbishop Demetrios back to the Monastery of Eikosiphinissa. Codex 1424 was legally purchased by Levi Franklin Gruber in 1920 from an international book dealer in Germany and was brought to the USA. Codex 1424 and other rare books in Gruber’s library were eventually incorporated into the rare book collection at Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (LSTC) that has been in the recent care of Professor Emeritus Ralph W. Klein, renowned biblical scholar and curator of that collection. As part of a thanksgiving ceremony at LSTC on Nov. 15^th,  Codex 1424 was given by the president of LSTC, Rev. Dr. James Nieman, to His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios. Feelings of gratitude, humility, love, and emotion were palpable among all those in attendance. The return of Codex 1424 to the Orthodox Church is an indescribable act of generosity and a remarkable example of Christian love and witness to the world.

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