-and-
As the world mourns the pontiff, we wanted to share this beautiful artifact and remember that special moment.
Source: Library of Congress
This is a guest post by Courtney Pomeroy, a social media specialist in the Office of Communications.
Photos: Courtesy
Cover Photo Caption: During his 2015 trip to the U.S., Pope Francis blesses an Apostles Edition of the Saint John’s Bible given to the Library by Saint John’s Abbey and St. John’s University. Included are U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt (second from left), Librarian of Congress James Billington (third from left) and U.S. House Speaker John Boehner (third from right). Photo: Heather Reed / Office of Speaker John Boehner)
n 2015, when Pope Francis became the fourth pope to visit the U.S., he blessed a modern masterpiece of a Bible that was then donated in his honor to the Library.
As the world mourns the pontiff, we wanted to share this beautiful artifact and remember that special moment.
The pope’s time in the U.S. was filled with all the pomp befitting a papal visit. He was greeted by huge crowds in each city of his six-day trip: Washington, New York and Philadelphia.
The journey began just outside the nation’s capital at Joint Base Andrews on Sept. 22, where he was received by President Barack Obama and his family. Two days later, he made history as the first pope to address a joint session of Congress.
Later that same day on Capitol Hill, Pope Francis was present for the donation of an Apostles Edition of The Saint John’s Bible — the first entirely handwritten and illuminated Bible commissioned by a Benedictine monastery in more than 500 years.
Commissioned by St. John’s University and St. John’s Abbey in 1998 and directed and overseen by Donald Jackson, a British master calligrapher, it is a 1,130-page, seven-volume, art-filled edition of the Bible. Its vellum pages are 2 feet tall, and the open volume measures 3 feet across. Jackson and his team used the ancient crafts of calligraphy and illumination but brought the book to life with the help of modern tools and understandings of world history. The project took 13 years and was completed in 2011.
St. John’s holds the original manuscript version of the Saint John’s Bible. Just twelve precious “Apostles Editions” were also created. They reside at institutions such as the Library, the Vatican Museum and Library and the Morgan Library.
St. John’s Abbey and St. John’s University donated a copy to the Library in 2015 to mark the papal visit.
“The Library of Congress is truly honored to receive this priceless work of human creativity and divine inspiration in honor of Pope Francis’ visit,” said then-Librarian James Billington.
The Library’s copy was then put on display in the Jefferson Building for three months. Parts of it were also on display during a 2006 national tour while it was being made.
The Bible is now part of the Library’s extensive collection of holy texts of many religions from around the world, including one of only three complete vellum copies of the Gutenberg Bible and the Giant Bible of Mainz.
“The St. John’s Bible is a rare work of art and a commemoration of divine inspiration in honor of Pope Francis,” said Carla Hayden, the Librarian of Congress. “The Library of Congress is honored to have it as part of our special collection after His Holiness blessed it during his visit to Washington, D.C., in 2015. The Bible is now available to researchers for study as part of the Library’s extensive collection of Bibles and religious texts from all the world’s religions.”
In a lecture at the Library in 2016, Tim Ternes, director of The Saint John’s Bible, spoke about the creation of the Bible. He detailed how Jackson had dreamed of creating a handwritten and illuminated Bible since childhood and brought the idea to the monks at Saint John’s Abbey in 1995 as a way to mark the millennium.
The idea moved from there and 20 years later, a copy was blessed by Pope Francis. It is now preserved at the Library for future generations.
