Eastern Christian Stories
HMML Stories — Eastern Christian
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Witnesses of Light: Armenian Manuscripts as Testimony and Digital Memory After Genocide
“The extraordinary manuscripts held at the Armenian Patriarchate of Istanbul are a poignant testament to the survival...”
- Dr. Ani Shahinian
The Prophet’s Birthday and Books for Celebrating It
“In many Muslim communities, the annual celebration of the Prophet Muḥammad’s birthday is one of the most festive occasions of the year...”
- Dr. Josh Mugler
Veiled in Ink: Armenian Women in Manuscripts
“When we think of medieval manuscripts in general, we may imagine male monastic scribes...”
- Dr. Ani Shahinian
The Empress and the Church Library: Manuscript Donations by Empress Zawditu
“Church libraries in Ethiopia have often depended upon wealthy and powerful patrons...”
- Dr. Jeremy R. Brown
Postscript — On Our Behalf
“The manuscripts of Ethiopia and Eritrea come in all shapes and sizes...”
- Dr. Jeremy R. Brown
The Lord’s Song in a Foreign Land
“In the middle of the 19th century, Arabic-speaking immigrants began to appear among the waves of newcomers arriving in the United States...”
- Dr. Josh Mugler
But Ask the Animals, and They Will Teach You
“Animals in scripts as symbols of meaning and the art of communicating a message...”
- Dr. Ani Shahinian
Instruments of Grace and Judgement
“The refrain “The Lord works in mysterious ways” is rarely truer than it is in the Ethiopic Miracles of Mary...”
- Dr. Jeremy R. Brown
Postscript — Layers of Translation and Illumination in an Armenian Manuscript
“In the New Testament, Acts of the Apostles (17:34), Luke describes the ‘marketplace of ideas’ in Athens...”
- Dr. Ani Shahinian
Decorative Birds in Syriac Manuscripts
“Bird watching is typically an activity that...”
- Dr. James Walters
The Mysteries & Rhythms of Nature, Seasons, and Time in the Armenian Liturgical Calendar
“Interwoven tapestry of the natural and spiritual worlds as observed through the Armenian liturgical calendar...”
- Dr. Ani Shahinian
Let it Fall as Rain
“Few things can impact daily life in quite the way that weather does...”
- Dr. Jeremy R. Brown
Music Awakens One’s Soul...
“An answer to the question of what it means to be human...”
- Dr. Ani Shahinian
Arthur Vööbus: Preserving a Legacy
“Dr. Arthur Voobus was many things—a scholar, pastor, teacher, and refugee in exile...”
- Dr. James Walters
The Legacy of Mūrisṭus’ Hydraulic and Pneumatic Pipe Organs in the Early 20th-Century Arabic Literary Culture
“The organ is not the first musical instrument that comes to mind when...”
- Dr. Celeste Gianni
Deadly snakes and remedies against their venomous bites in the handy charts of a copy of the “Kitāb al-diryāq” (Book on antidotes)
“The Arabic manuscript tradition is rich in medical works discussing remedies and...”
- Dr. Celeste Gianni
Instructions for Burial: The Last Will and Testament of Ephrem the Syrian
“Ephrem is perhaps the most widely known of all Syriac authors...”
- Dr. James Walters
Postscript — A Swedish Saint in Syriac
“Stories about saints, much like their relics, rarely remain tied to...”
- Dr. James Walters
Tracing Scribal Genealogies in Syriac Manuscripts: The Naṣro Family
“The act of hand-copying a manuscript requires specialized skills that...”
- Dr. James Walters
Identifying Syriac Fragments in the Digital Age
“What would you do if someone handed you a page that had clearly been torn out of a book...”
- Dr. James Walters
Where We’re Working: L’viv, Ukraine
“In the early decades of HMML, the region beyond the proverbial Iron Curtain was out of reach.”
- Dr. Columba Stewart
“This Book is Free From Banned Content” — Ottoman Censorship of al-Yāzijī’s Arabic Lexicon
“The Lebanese poet, journalist, and linguist Ibrāhīm al-Yāzijī (1847–1906) has gained fame as a...”
- Dr. Vevian Zaki
Ḫeruy Walda Śellāsē’s “History of Ethiopia”
“Printing reached Ethiopia rather late. In Europe, texts were occasionally printed in Ethiopic characters from...”
- Ted Erho
A Book You Would Love to Read...
“A book you would love to read is lost, altered, destroyed, buried, hidden, left unpublished, unwritten, banned.”
- Dr. Catherine Walsh and Margaret Bresnahan
Books that Survived the Ban — Syriac Manuscripts in India
“Christianity has a long, rich history in India. Some even trace the origins of Christian communities in India to...”
- Dr. James Walters
Lifted on Wings
“Angels occupy an important place in monotheistic religions. They are mainly presented as celestial beings...”
- Sister Marie-Thérèse Elia
Between the Sun and Moon
“Today, depending on what communities you are a part of, your concept of a year may follow a calendar that is...”
- Ted Erho
Signs in the Heavens — Astrological Books of Daniel in Eastern Christianity
“In Syriac Christian communities, astrological texts were sometimes appended to medical books and...”
- Dr. David Calabro
Why was Esau so Hungry? Genesis 25 in Arabic Manuscripts
“Among the well-known biblical narratives is that of the twins Jacob and Esau, and...”
- Dr. Vevian Zaki
Postscript — A Sister’s Vows
“In 1744, the French Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary established a convent in ʻAynṭūrah, Lebanon, known in Arabic as...”
- Dr. Vevian Zaki
Arabian Nights of the Christian East
“On a shelf in the Syriac Orthodox Church of Saint George in Aleppo is a manuscript copied in Arabic Garshuni...”
- Dr. David Calabro
Tracing Folktales in Magic Texts — The Story of Umm al-Ṣibyān
“Despite having been contested in Islamic history by powerful groups rejecting them as illegitimate practices, magic and...”
- Dr. Celeste Gianni
Ottoman Soap Operas and Other Stories
“HMML’s digital collections include entertaining stories from a wide range of linguistic and...”
- Dr. Josh Mugler
The Book of Laughable Stories — A Medieval Joke Book
“Have you ever heard a great joke, but then later when you tried to recount it for someone else, you couldn’t remember it?”
- Dr. James Walters
The Emperor’s Manuscript
“Towards the end of Getatchew Haile’s first published catalog of Ethiopic manuscripts...”
- Ted Erho
The Journey of One Armenian Manuscript
“In 1945, a pharmacist living in Lebanon—Manaseh Kaprielian—presented a 17th-century Armenian manuscript to...”
- Malina Zakian
From Cairo to Mardin, Manuscripts on Camelback
“This note is the sole testament to the manuscript’s remarkable journey from Egypt to Mardin, a city in...”
- Dr. Vevian Zaki
Prof. Getatchew Haile — A Giant in His Field and in the Hearts of All Who Knew Him
“Much has been said about the scholarly achievements of Prof. Getatchew Haile...”
- Joe Rogers
Medicine, Ritual, and Magic in Ethiopia
“Towards the middle of the 15th century, the Ethiopian Emperor Zar’a Yā‘eqob, a prominent theologian and scholar, faced...”
- Ted Erho
Remedies in the Margins of Syriac Manuscripts
“People in past centuries would sometimes use the blank flyleaves and margins of manuscripts to...”
- Dr. David Calabro
Where We’re Working: Dayr Anbā Maqār, Egypt
“The Monastery of Saint Macarius is one of the oldest active Coptic monasteries in Egypt.”
- Dr. David Calabro
Getatchew Haile, Ethiopic scholar
“The work of Dr. Getatchew Haile, long-time curator of the HMML Ethiopia Study Center...”
- Ted Erho
Where We're Working: Missionary Society of Saint Paul, Harissa, Lebanon
“Lebanon is one of the most religiously variegated countries in the Middle East.”
- Dr. Melissa Moreton