Revealing, Preserving, and Sharing the Syriac Manuscript Heritage in the Near East and India

Discovering a New World in the Old: Revealing, Preserving, and Sharing the Syriac Manuscript Heritage in the Near East and India

By Fr. Columba Stewart, OSB, DPhil, Hill Museum & Manuscript Library

On the occasion of the appearance of the fifteenth volume of the edition of the Peshitta, the second-century Syriac Bible still used by Syriac Christians in the Middle East and the Diaspora. This is the first volume prepared in Amsterdam after the move of the Peshitta Institute from Leiden.

Since 2003 the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (HMML) at Saint John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota, has been partnering with Syriac-tradition communities throughout the Near East and South India to digitize, catalog, and share their manuscript heritage. HMML’s work with Syriac manuscripts is part of a broader effort that began on the eve of the US-led invasion of Iraq and continued throughout subsequent tragedies, particularly the rise of Daesh (ISIS) in 2014, when Christians were uprooted from Mosul and villages throughout the Nineveh plain.

The result has been the digitization of more than 15,000 Syriac and Garshuni manuscripts from five countries (India, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey) and the Old City of Jerusalem. These include manuscripts from the Chaldean Catholic, Malankara Orthodox, Maronite, Syriac Catholic, Syriac Orthodox, Syro-Malabar Catholic and Syro-Malankara Catholic traditions. Together these represent a largely unstudied array of manuscript material complementing the well-known collections in Europe and North America. Most of these manuscripts were previously inaccessible to scholars. In recent years some collections have been moved or hidden because of war, while others have been destroyed. Complete digital versions are now coming online through vHMML Reading Room, with more than 4000 Syriac manuscripts already freely accessible, including scans of almost 50 manuscripts from the microfilm collection of the Peshitta Institute.

The lecture will be followed by short talks on the new Brill Peshitta Portal (Wido van Peursen) and the on the 60^th anniversary of the Peshitta Institute (Bas ter Haar Romeny). After these, the new volume will be presented to H.E. Mor Polycarpus, Metropolitan and Patriarchal Vicar for the Netherlands of the Syriac Orthodox Church, and Fr. Columba Stewart. The meeting will be concluded by a drinks reception.

15 October 2019, 3 p.m., room Agora 1 (third floor, main building), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam

Registration (optional): bas.ter.haarromeny@vu.nl

Lenten Prayer of Saint Ephrem translated into Syriac by Ninos Oshaana

Reposted here for posterity from his Wordpress blog (https://oshaana.wordpress.com/)...

"Every year during Great Lent, Orthodox Christians recite a short yet deeply poignant prayer attributed to Saint Ephrem the Syrian.

O Lord and Master of my life! Take from me the spirit of sloth, faint-heartedness, lust of power, and idle talk.  But give rather the spirit of  chastity, humility, patience, and love to Thy servant. Yea, O Lord and King! Grant me to see my own errors and not to judge my brother; For Thou art blessed unto ages of ages. Amen

Friends and colleagues have asked if I know the original Syriac version of this prayer. I’m assuming it exists somewhere although I personally have not seen any references to a Syriac manuscript which contains the prayer in this form. Many of Saint Ephrem’s prayers have similar wording and structure. The attribution to Saint Ephrem is also very old.

Working from the English text, I translated the prayer back into Syriac. Please note that this is only an approximation of how the prayer would be written in Syriac and not the actual text by Saint Ephrem. I have also transliterated the Syriac text to demonstrate the pronunciation."