An ancient New Testament manuscript will be handed to a Greek Orthodox archbishop on Tuesday in a gesture that hopes to spark a worldwide return of artefacts to original owners.
The 9th century document was looted from a monastery in northern Greece 99 years ago and has been Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago's (LSTC) most prized possession. But the president of the tiny seminary will hand over the manuscript worth hundreds of thousands of dollars for free.
The one-building evangelical school, with 225 students, is hoping the move will encourage others to follow suit.
"We want to say, even a little school like ours can do something that makes a difference and that is powerful and right," said LSTC president James Nieman.
"And we'd like to encourage other institutions who are in a similar circumstance to be able to do the same thing. I think that would be a very important part of this for us."
He added: "The most surprising thing to me in this process was that not a single person in any of this said we shouldn't do this.
"They all said, of course we have to do this."
Known as Codex 1424, the 337-page manuscipt was transcribed by a monk named Sabas and added to by others. It is the oldest complete New Testament of the Byzantine text family. Until the 20<sup>th century it was one of thousands to be held in the library of the Kosintza Monastery near Drama, Greece.
But after the Bulgarian guerillas looted monasteries across northern Greece in 1917, the treasures were "spread all around the globe," said New York attorney George Tsougarakis, who represents the Greek Church in trying to get the material back.
The Greek Orthodox Church wrote to institutions that held the manuscripts and LSTC was the first to respond. "We hope that others will follow the fine example," said Tsougarakis.
Archbishop Demetrios, head of the Greek Orthodox Church in America, has traveled from New York to Chicago for a handover ceremony on Tuesday morning.
"In the spirit of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday," he said, "our hearts are filled with gratitude to our Lutheran brothers and sisters for this generous and kind gesture."
