Russia Bible museum sees the books as national treasures

As she tried to remove the priceless Bible from its glass case, Moscow University professor Irina Pozdeyeva could barely lift the almost 2,000-page book.

The gray-haired scholar ran her fingers through the meticulously stitched and restored leaves of the Bible, produced in 1581 by Ivan Fyodorov, father of Russian printing. Pozdeyeva said she never fails to experience a surge of emotion when she handles the book, one of 350 surviving copies of the first Bibles printed in Russia in the old Slavonic language.

"How else can you feel handling this treasure?" she said.

Pozdeyeva's life this year has been filled with the pleasant anxiety of preparing for a landmark event in the history of the Russian Orthodox Church, and a crowning achievement of a career spent searching for what she terms "printed monuments of Russian culture."

After a history of Christianity in Russia full of victories and failures, devotion and scorn, adoration and neglect, the Museum of the Holy Bible will open this fall at the out-of-the-way St. Joseph of Volokolamsk monastery, about 70 miles northwest of Moscow.

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http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004047180339 John Adams

Let's just hope and pray that the government will allow the Bible to be freely displayed and read in the homes of its citizens, and in the churches and home churches of their country.
DockyWocky

Gee. I think those communist Russkies were hedging their bets about Soviet Communism. Otherwise, like those ignorant moslems in Afghganistan who blew up the Buddha's, and want to tear down the Pyramids, they would have burned up those holy books.
Evermyrtle

There are many Christian Russians who I understand are persecuted, but am not sure of that. I can appreciate their feelings about these ancient, pricelees Bibles.
Romy Monteyro

Makes me wish this is happening in America, a country founded on Christian principles. I'm very glad though that the Holy Book is being honored and revered as a national treasure in Russia, a county once dominated by a Godless ideology. Was it Ruth or Billy Graham who once said that, "If God oes nt render judgment on America, He owes Sodom and Gommorah an apology." It's happening now! The evil that those two biblical cities which God destroyed are very evident in America today! We can only be grateful that we have a loving God who is keeping His anger in check!