13 Mar 2026
Church historian Prof. Dr. Martin Wallraff has studied a previously unknown fragment of a precious purple manuscript from the 10th century at the Vatopedi Monastery on Mount Athos.
© Martin Wallraff
The fragment consists of two leaves that are actually glued together from originally four leaves. They contain a piece of Eusebius' canon tables, a synopsis of the Gospels from the fourth century. These tables were often lavishly decorated, as is the case here. The writing and decoration are applied in gold on purple parchment, and the schematic architectural representation (canon arches) has polychromatic ornaments. The quality of the numerals and the illumination points to Constantinople as the probable place of origin. This is the only surviving example of canon tables on purple and one of the very few Greek purple manuscripts from the Middle Byzantine period.
The fragment is now kept in the monastery's treasury, not in the library. This is why it has escaped scholars’ attention. Until a few years ago, the two leaves were bound into an old printed book, where they survived for centuries.
The article in which Prof. Wallraff draws attention to this fragment and makes it accessible has just been published in the Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum (Journal of Ancient Christianity).