Halki Seminary’s treasure of books to be digitized

A rich library featuring some of the world's oldest printed books at the Greek Orthodox Halki Seminary are set to be transferred to a digital platform.

The school's library currently offers 69,000 volumes of books. While most of the books date back to the 18th and 19th centuries, there is a copy of Aristophanes' comedies that was published all the way back in 1484 along with some copies of the Bible and the Torah's first editions. Next month, volunteer experts will begin to transfer the books into PDF format and into digital archives. The archive will be openly accessible on the Internet. Metropolitan Bishop of Bursa and Abbot of the Aya Triada Monastery Elpidophoros Lambriniadis announced they will make an agreement with a Munich-based library to help preserve the books.

"The books are so old and need repair. The special maintenance project will carry out with the help of priests, experts and Erasmus students," Lambriniadis said. The library situated in the school's basement floor has five halls where there are a wide range of books in the fields of literature, philosophy and religion in English, French, Ottoman Turkish, Old Greek and Latin. Centuriesold books are protected against insects by small pockets of lavender collected from the school's garden. The Greek Orthodox Halki Seminary was established in 1844 as a part of the Aya Triada Monastery dating back to the eighthcentury.