Strangers violently tearing pages of precious manuscripts of the 13th century in a mystical surrounding. An elite member of so-called “high society” keeping precious relics in his house, but going through life without ever revealing to anyone how they arrived in his hands. A beautiful monastery surrounded by Aegean blue and an art collector – famous lawyer, who is persistently seeking the truth.
This is not a scene from the famous Umberto Eco ‘s work “The Name of the Rose” or from a thriller movie. This is a real life story that unfolds between Athens and the island of Amorgos, that has occupied the courts for many years and it will continue to do so until the rare manuscripts return back to where they belong: to the iconic Hozoviotissa monastery in Amorgos. At the heart of the case is an important book written in the 5th or 6th century by Saint John of Sinai (or John Climacus), which is considered one of the masterpieces of ecclesiastical literature.
The manuscript (a copy of St. John’s book) is kept in the Monastery of Our Lady of Amorgos, which attracts thousands of pilgrims and tourists from around the world and was featured in the film “The Big Blue”. From this book six pages were ripped and they were later found in the collection of the Benaki Museum. The precious fragments arrived at the museum as a donation, as the director Mr. Angelos Delivorias said to the authorities. According to his testimony, they had been donated in 2006 by Demetrios Koutsoudakis, a known architect of Athens, who died four years later, without ever explaining to the authorities how these precious relics ended up in his hands.
This incredible case was brought to the attention of Justice in April 2009, when lawyer Stelios Garipis, an art collector for more than 20 years, decided to conduct a research before buying manuscripts about the lives of saints. As part of his research he visited the Benaki Museum and discovered, to his surprise, that the collection included fragments of the 13th century (1253 AD) manuscript, which was stolen from St. John of Sinai’s treatise “The Ladder of Divine Ascent”.

Mr. Gkaripis filed a criminal complaint with the First Instance Court prosecutor in Athens, since he was sure that “someone cut from the manuscripts tore at the Hozoviotissa Monastery in Amorgos the pages that ended up at the Benaki Museum” through the donation by Koutsoudakis. The prosecutor immediately ordered an investigation during which the officials and archaeologists who had undertaken to preserve the precious heirloom were asked to testify. All of them verified that the preservation work of the manuscript took place in a guarded room in the Palace of the Grand Master in Rhodes, which houses the laboratories, and then the manuscript was transferred under the escort of police in the monastery.

Two copies from the copy of St. John of Sinai’s treatise “The Ladder of Divine Ascent”, an important book written in the 5th or 6th century. As it is mentioned in a note in the lower page, the copy dates back to 1253.
The first suspect the authorities focused on was the abbot of the monastery, Archimandrite Spyridon Denaxas, who was called to testify. The Archimandrite confirmed that the monastery holds, among other relics, the specific manuscript with the words of St. John Climacus. “I do not know whether any pages from this book have been removed or replaced in any way,” the abbot claimed, adding that since the archaeological department has placed these relics in the show cases, they have never been moved.