The Facsimile of Liber ruber for Pope Francis

Being led by Archabbot Hortobágyi T. Cirill, a delegation of Pannonhalma visited Rome and Montecassino. On 25 January, they joined Pope Francis in the Vespers concluding the oecumenical week of prayer in the Basilica of Saint Paul outside the Walls. The abbot of the Basilica’s Benedictine monastery, Donato Ogliari visited Pannonhalma last year. He preached a sermon in the Hungarian monastery’s 800-year-old church on 15 April.

Next day, on 26 January, the representatives of our Abbey travelled to Montecassino. Between the Benedictine mother-monastery and Pannonhalma, a prayer union has existed since 1212, and both monastic communities pray for each other on 25 January every year. This year, the Italian and Hungarian monks prayed together at Saint Benedict’s tomb on the day following the anniversary.

On 27 January, Pope Francis received Archabbot Cirill and the delegation in private. As a gift, the Holy Father was given the facsimile of Liber ruber among others. The codex of 1240 is a book of document-copies (chartularium), which was put together by the order of Abbot Uros in the scriptorium of Pannonhalma. It contains the most important documents related to Pannonhalma in the period between 1001 and 1240. The documents issued by popes can be found in a separate group in the second half of the codex. These justify the millennial relationship between Saint Martin’s Monastery and the Holy See. The facsimile and its decorative leather case was made in the workshop of Pytheas Könyvmanufaktúra, it was edited by Makovecz Campus Alapítvány and the Archives of the Archabbey in Pannonhalma.

The visit made by Archabbot Cirill and the delegation of Pannonhalma to Rome and Montecassino can be read about in greater detail here#mce_temp_url#.