November 29, 2006
Dear Friends:

It has been several months since I last wrote a formal Director’s Letter. As you have been able to tell from other communications, we have been developing ways to keep in touch with you about timely matters through email and more generally through expanded, full-color, issues of Illuminations and other mailings. Some of you have asked why we devote so much time (and, presumably, expense) to such efforts. There is, of course, a fundraising dimension to our communications; all of you know that. The not-for-profit sector has become very competitive and fundraising has become correspondingly more sophisticated. HMML’s cycle of mailings and other forms of contact is typical for an institution of our kind, and the ratio of investment vs. return is well within the norms for our corner of the not-for-profit world. However, we send our newsletters and other updates to all of our friends and supporters. Many give quite modestly, and others are not able to give at all. We have a story to tell, and it is part of our mission to tell it as widely as possible. Simply put, the handwritten cultural heritage of humankind is at risk, and we are doing something about it.

In recent months, HMML teams have been at work on three continents, photographing manuscripts in Europe (Sweden and Italy), Asia (Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey), and Africa (Ethiopia). In coming months we will start new projects in Romania and Ukraine, photographing manuscripts from both the western and eastern Christian traditions. I am finding in my conversations with prospective partners in manuscript preservation that our reputation is growing, building on the success of the last forty years and the increased prominence we have had recently from our abundance of manuscript digitization projects and the acclaim for The Saint John’s Bible.

Last month I spent time in Romania meeting with those responsible for manuscript collections in the north central and northeastern parts of the country, regions known historically as Bucovina and Moldavia. Romania is unusual among the formerly communist countries in that its manuscripts were not gathered into central repositories but remained dispersed throughout the country in ecclesiastical libraries as well as in state and academic collections. The country is also unique in its blend of a Romance language with a Slavic religious culture, a reminder that even in ancient times the area straddled the linguistic divide between the Latin and Greek regions of the Roman Empire and its successors. Its geographical location in the Balkans meant that the region now known as Romania (a nineteenth-century union of two former Ottoman provinces) has been a conduit into Ukraine and Russia for Greek and Slavonic culture from the south.

We also plan to begin work in Ukraine in 2007, starting in the western part of the country. Those of you who spend time with atlases and history books will know that the region known as Galicia began the twentieth century as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, between the wars was part of the newly created Polish republic, and was incorporated into the Ukrainian S.S.R. during World War II (with a murderous Nazi occupation along the way). The mix of cultures is evident even today in the Austrian architecture of cities like L’viv and Chernivtsi despite the absence of the various communities that had made these cities so cosmopolitan before the War: Poles, Jews, Romanians, Armenians, etc. When I made my first visit to Ukraine last spring, I visited libraries that held Latin manuscripts confiscated in the 1940s from Roman Catholic churches and monasteries. The culture that had produced and treasured these manuscripts had been extinguished in the region by Soviet deportation of non-Ukrainian ethnic groups. I was shown manuscripts that I could identify immediately by their contents and from the ownership inscriptions of now-defunct religious communities. These manuscripts have never been catalogued for lack of staff who could read Latin. I am excited about the prospect of partnering with these libraries to make their holdings better known and more accessible.

Last summer we kept you informed by email about the status of HMML’s projects in Lebanon during their month of war. By September each project was back in operation, and some even kept working during the war itself. The past week has brought Lebanon back into the headlines with another politically motivated assassination and mass protests. The poignant struggles of this fragile, multi-ethnic land remind us of the importance of working toward understanding of others through history, literature, and art. Our hope is that our own work in the Middle East may make some contribution to this vital effort.

At this time of year we are accustomed to reckoning and sharing our blessings. Among my blessings are all of you, who support us with your work on our behalf, your generosity, your suggestions and encouragement, your prayers. Thank you, and may the celebrations of Light amidst this increasingly dark world bring you hope and good cheer.

Yours sincerely,

Father Columba Stewart OSB
Executive Director

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November 2005

Dear Friends,

I write this letter from Cairo, where I've just said “Bon voyage” to a group of HMML Overseers and spouses. We've completed a two-week visit to Ethiopia and Egypt, familiarizing ourselves with current conditions in each country and with possibilities for HMML's involvement in preserving their manuscripts. Our tour guides observed that the itinerary was unusual, with our clear focus on manuscripts, and on the places where they are to be found, especially libraries and monasteries. In the process we were able to renew some old connections and to make many new ones. The journey was extraordinary in many ways, but most especially for our immersion in ancient Christian cultures. In Ethiopia we visited churches that have experienced daily prayers in the ancient Ethiopic language, Ge'ez, for centuries. On Sunday morning, we joined hundreds of worshippers standing outside the main church in Bahir Dar, on Lake Tana in northern Ethiopia. Dressed in the traditional white cloak, they listening attentively to the liturgy broadcast from inside the church (filled with other worshippers) and joined the chanting at key moments in the liturgy. One by one, they would approach the church door, venerate the threshold, and either enter or return to their places outside. The roots of their religious practice run very deep. In the Ethiopian countryside the creation and use of manuscripts continues as a natural part of religious life. In the ancient capital of Yeha, northeast of Axum, we saw small boys learning to read Ge'ez from old manuscripts, led in recitation by an elderly priest. In each place we visited, manuscripts, many of them hundreds of years old, were brought out for us. From a western perspective it all seemed very extraordinary, and also very fragile: no fire protection, no security systems, no records of what they have.

As most of you know, HMML worked in Ethiopia in the 1970s and 1980s, as a partner in the creation of the EMML, the Ethiopian Manuscript Microfilm Library, a concept inspired by HMML's own mission. Thousands of manuscripts from various regions were brought to Addis Ababa for microfilming by a local team. Revolution and civil war finally ended the project, and the last 1400 microfilms were never sent to HMML for processing, duplication, and cataloguing. I found them at the National Archives and Library in Addis Ababa in 2003, and this latest trip coincided with a project to digitize the films for broader access. Through the generosity of the Mildred H. Kellogg Trust of Minneapolis, we were able to send a team of three technicians to Addis, led by our Director of Digital Collections and Imaging, Wayne Torborg. They spent long days and some nights running the films through a high-speed scanner we shipped from the US for the project (getting this sophisticated piece of equipment there and back is another, and lengthy, story). They managed to capture 137,000 frames of microfilm, more than half of the total. These materials will now be copied for the various Ethiopian partners in the original EMML project and safely archived at HMML, where they will join the 7500 Ethiopian manuscripts on microfilm already in Minnesota. Sadly, however, many of the films could not be scanned. Conditions toward the end of the filming project seem to have led to poor exposure or development of the films. We are exploring other strategies for recovering whatever can be saved from those films, as well as identifying possible candidates for re-shooting in the future.

While I was in Ethiopia I met with several people about the possibility of resuming preservation work in the country. At least a couple of opportunities are emerging. As in our projects in the Middle East, these would be collaborative efforts that bring our forty years of experience to benefit local partners. Ethiopia now faces something of a crisis as its cultural heritage is threatened by souvenir hunters, smuggling, and the economic needs of people who sell manuscripts and other treasures simply to get by. In many ways, our mission of preservation is even more urgent now in Ethiopia than it was thirty years ago.

In Egypt, the Coptic Orthodox Church has developed a project to preserve many of its manuscripts, held mostly in monasteries. We are exploring ways to cooperate with their efforts by providing technical support and a broader scholarly audience for their preservation work. Our group visited four Coptic monasteries, and then made the trek to the Sinai Peninsula. There we climbed Mount Sinai (known as Jebel Musa, the "Mountain of Moses," in the local tradition) and visited Saint Katherine’s Monastery, home of one of the world's great manuscript collections. We were able to see some of their finest manuscripts and to see the extraordinary library. Happily, the monks have developed their own project of photographic preservation. You may have seen stories about their effort, led by the American-born Father Justin. Some years ago he visited HMML to learn about our work, and we maintain a cordial relationship.

Back in Collegeville, the HMML staff spent the summer updating our electronic catalogue of manuscripts, the world's largest. We are also working to bring our other resources in printed books and art to a broader public through electronic cataloguing funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. We continue to add digital images to Vivarium, our web portal to the collections. We now have more than 75,000 images of manuscripts, printed books, art, and other resources available to the world. We welcomed hundreds of visitors to HMML to see pages from the Prophets volume of The Saint John's Bible, to enjoy a special exhibition on manuscript and printed Bibles, and to learn more about our mission. One of the more significant groups to visit us was the Catholic Biblical Association, who held their national convention at Saint John's for the first time.

In the more mundane, but nonetheless essential, realm of fundraising, we finished our most successful year ever. We met our second benchmark in the challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for the Malta Study Center, but the hardest effort lies ahead. Meanwhile, we have begun the most thorough strategic planning and positioning exercise in our history. We expect that by spring of next year we will have clearer sense of where HMML should be in the 21st century, and how to find the resources to get us there.

As we head into the holiday season, we at HMML are grateful for many things, including your continued interest and support. As you give thanks for your own blessings, please consider a gift to HMML before the end of the calendar year.

Yours sincerely,

Father Columba Stewart OSB
Executive Director

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July 14, 2005

Dear Friends:

Our fortieth anniversary year finds us tending the riches of the past while building the HMML of the next several decades.

Our core mission of manuscript preservation continues at nine sites in Europe and the Middle East. By the end of the summer we will add another project in the Middle East, in Aleppo, Syria. The fruits of these endeavors, from the Royal Library in Stockholm to the Rome Priory of the Knights of Malta, to our projects in various regions of the Middle East, establish HMML not only as the premier archive for microfilms of manuscripts, but also as the major center in the world for digital preservation and access related to manuscripts. The volume of preservation activity we now support has raised our profile and attracted the interest both of prospective preservation sites and of important partners for providing the cataloguing and delivery of images essential to scholarly access to the preserved manuscripts.

In May I was in Alexandria, Egypt, for the first time. Many of you know that in Hellenistic times a magnificent library was assembled in Alexandria that became the greatest of the ancient world. Today an extraordinary and visionary Egyptian project of the present has constructed a new library on the Corniche in Alexandria, hoping to revitalize the intellectual life of the country and the entire region. The hope is to create a largely digital collection of service to readers around the world.

I spent several days at this new Bibliotheca Alexandrina attending the annual conference of MELCOM, an association of Middle Eastern Librarians. While there, I visited the digitization lab at the Bibliotheca, where advanced technology is used to scan Arabic printed books and index their contents. I updated the MELCOM conference on HMML’s progress since last year’s meeting in Munich, and they were amazed at how much we have done in a year’s time: several new preservation projects, Vivarium online, and the emergence of a collection of eastern Christian manuscripts unprecedented in both scale and scope. Alexandria was a uniquely apt setting to announce these developments.

During the MELCOM meeting, the First Ladies of both the United States and Egypt stopped by the Bibliotheca for a walk-through and press conference. We saw neither Mrs. Bush nor Mrs. Mubarak, but even the Secret Service agents and large black SUVs from the U.S. Embassy were an exciting diversion from our conference!

I used the opportunity of my visit to Egypt to establish contacts with Coptic Christian libraries, most notably in the monasteries. The Copts have a major manuscript restoration project at the Monastery of Mar Mina, in the western desert between Alexandria and El Alamein. At Mar Mina manuscripts from the patriarchal collection and other libraries are brought to be restored and photographed. We discussed the possibility of a partnership to upgrade their photographic technology and provide safe archiving of their images at HMML. I also visited several monasteries in the desert of Wadi Natrun, the ancient Scetis. At one of them, some manuscript fragments had been recently discovered, and I was delighted to learn that a couple of my scholarly colleagues, including my Syriac professor from Oxford, Sebastian Brock, were on site to help identify the finds. After our unexpected reunion, they showed me what they had found. I won’t steal their thunder by revealing either the location or the nature of their discoveries, but it reminded me how much remains to be found in monasteries and churches throughout the Middle East.

I then traveled to southeastern Turkey, visiting Syriac Christian communities that have been in existence for over 1600 years. Despite persecution and emigration, these communities hold on to their traditions and language, and also hold on to their manuscripts. I visited a small village and met the teacher who, in the 1950s, had copied the manuscript still used in their liturgy. I also saw manuscripts dating back more than 1200 years, miraculous survivors of perilous centuries. I am happy to report that we have been able to provide some assistance in the region, and will tell you more about our work there when the situation permits.

In Collegeville, we continue our evolution into the digital age. The program of retrospective digitization of our legacy microfilm collection has now made some 60,000 images accessible through Vivarium. We have focused initially on our color microfilm collection and on particularly important manuscripts from Ethiopia. We are seeking permission from various libraries in Austria and Germany to make their microfilms available in digital form on Vivarium, and find that scholars now prefer to order a scan of our microfilms that they can use on their own computer rather than a duplicate microfilm. While microfilm remains a valued archival medium, it is used less and less as a means of access to photographed materials.

We are also devoting a good deal of effort this summer to improving our online catalogue to make sure that the best cataloguing available is included and that each record is as accurate as possible. One of the advantages of an electronic catalogue is that updating can be continual. We are also linking catalogue entries directly to Vivarium when we have digitized images of a particular manuscript. This glimpse into the future of HMML as the premier portal to manuscript information and images has been exhilarating.

Meanwhile, the first major exhibition of The Saint John’s Bible is closing at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. The show has been a tremendous success, attracting some 60,000 visitors. At HMML we are displaying pages from the latest volume, Prophets, and have an accompanying exhibit of important Bibles from HMML’s collections of rare books and manuscripts. Should you find your way to Collegeville this summer, we urge you to stop by and see these treasures. Our summer hours are 8:00-4:30 Monday- Friday, and Noon-4:00 PM Saturday and Sunday.

At a joyful and moving celebration at Saint John’s on May 15, we honored the Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch, His Beatitude Ignatius IV Hazim, with the Pax Christi Award, the highest honor of Saint John’s Abbey and University. The Patriarch was among the first to grasp the importance of our work in the Middle East, and his blessing upon the project at Balamand Monastery and University in Lebanon began our involvement in the region. Having been his guest at the patriarchate in Damascus, it was a special joy for us to welcome him and the President of the University of Balamand, Dr. Elie Salem, to Saint John’s. In his remarks at Abbey Evening Prayer, His Beatitude spoke simply and powerfully: “Unity is not an act of administration only, but it is an act of looking to each other and feeling that the other is not “other,” but is the creation of the same God.”

Preserving the thoughts and inspirations of the past, and making them accessible to those who are “other” in both time and place, bridges both distance and misunderstanding. Your support for our work is vital to this mission. Thank you for your generosity in the past. Please keep us among those with whom you share your resources. May the rest of the summer be for you a time of delight and refreshment.

Yours sincerely,

Father Columba Stewart OSB
Executive Director

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January 17, 2005

Dear Friend:

Because you have been so important to the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library throughout the years, I am writing you to share some exciting news. We are announcing today the formation of the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (HMML), combining a number of Saint John’s University’s major collections of manuscripts, rare books, art and The Saint John’s Bible. This development extends the mission of our Manuscript Library, reinforcing our emphasis on preserving intellectual and artistic traditions formative of religious culture.

As you know, forty years ago, Saint John’s University took a bold and visionary step with the creation of a new library dedicated to the preservation of priceless manuscripts held in European monasteries and libraries.
The holdings of what came to be known as the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library have grown to number more than 90,000 manuscripts on microfilm – nearly 30 million pages. Over the years we filmed broadly, from Sweden to Ethiopia, Germany to Malta. Two years ago, we began a major Eastern Mediterranean initiative in Lebanon and will soon add manuscripts from Syria and Turkey. Such growth speaks powerfully to the importance of our mission in a part of the world beset by great turmoil and uncertainty.

At the same time HMML was growing, Saint John’s received the gift of the Arca Artium collection, building upon our existing collections of rare books and art. In recent years, The Saint John’s Bible has become an important project of Saint John’s University and of the Abbey. It seems natural that these various entities, dedicated as they are to art, culture, and the spiritual imagination, be organized as one. Accordingly, the Saint John’s Board of Regents has approved new statutes of operation and a new name for HMML. Happily, the acronym HMML remains: it is now the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library. We trust our new name will maintain the identity we have built since 1965, while suggesting at the same time a welcoming space for visitors to view displays from our art, rare book and manuscript collections and from The Saint John’s Bible.

The unique focus of our collections sets HMML apart and makes us pre-eminent in our field. Whether manuscript, printed book, or work of art, each piece in our collection reflects the way humans imagine and communicate what is sacred to them. The collection now ranges from rare books, to original lithographs by Picasso and Chagall on religious subjects, to abstract works meant to inspire spiritual reflection, to a new illuminated Bible for the modern era. Bringing together all of these collections in HMML is a profoundly Benedictine undertaking. For 1,500 years we have been committed to glorifying God by creating, caring for, and preserving books, art and architecture of enduring quality and beauty.

I want to assure you that our commitment to manuscript preservation remains central to the new HMML. We have more preservation sites operating now than ever before in our history, and that number will increase this year. Moreover, our movement into digital imaging of our collection creates opportunities for access to manuscripts we could only dream of in the past. As we move forward in the coming months, we will communicate regularly with you, charting the growth and progress of the new HMML. Thank you for your continued and generous support.

Yours sincerely,

Father Columba Stewart, O.S.B. Executive Director