Codex Sinaiticus

== Present location ==
[[File:british library london.jpg|thumb|The British Library]]
The codex is now split into four unequal portions: 347 leaves in the [[British Library]] in London (199 of the Old Testament, 148 of the New Testament), 12 leaves and 14 fragments in the Saint Catherine's Monastery, 43 leaves in the [[Leipzig University Library]], and fragments of 3 leaves in the [[Russian National Library]] in [[Saint Petersburg]].{{r|Aland}}

Saint Catherine's Monastery still maintains the importance of a letter, handwritten in 1844 with an original signature of Tischendorf confirming that he borrowed those leaves and that they would be returned from Russia if requested.<ref>[http://www.sinaimonastery.com/index.php?lid=107# Ο Σιναϊτικός Κώδικας].</ref> However, Russian scholars contend that recently published documents, including a [[deed of gift]] dated 11 September 1868 (four years after the removal of the manuscript from the monastery) and signed by Archbishop Kallistratos and the monks of the monastery, amount to a proof that the manuscript was obtained legally.<ref name="Zacharova">[http://www.nlr.ru/exib/CodexSinaiticus/zah/ ''"История приобретения Синайской Библии Россией в свете новых документов из российских архивов"''], А.В.Захарова, ''Монфокон: исследования по палеографии, кодикологии и дипломатике'', Ι, Москва—С.-Петербург, 2007, 209–266</ref> This deed, which agrees with a report by [[Kurt Aland]] on the matter, has now been published. This development is not widely known in the English-speaking world, as only German- and Russian-language media reported on it in 2009. Doubts as to the legality of the gift arose because when Tischendorf originally removed the manuscript from Saint Catherine's Monastery in September 1859, the monastery was without an archbishop, so that even though the intention to present the manuscript to the Tsar had been expressed, no legal gift could be made at the time. Resolution of the matter was delayed through the turbulent reign of Archbishop Cyril (consecrated 7 December 1859, deposed 24 August 1866).
Skeat in his article "The Last Chapter in the History of the Codex Sinaiticus" concluded in this way:
<blockquote>
This is not the place to pass judgements, but perhaps I may say that, as it seems to me, both the monks and Tischendorf deserve our deepest gratitude, Tischendorf for having alerted the monks to the importance of the manuscript, and the monks for having undertaken the daunting task of searching through the vast mass of material with such spectacular results, and then doing everything in their power to safeguard the manuscript against further loss. If we accept the statement of Uspensky, that he saw the codex in 1845, the monks must have worked very hard to complete their search and bind up the results in so short a period.{{r|Skeat-lastchap|p=315}}
</blockquote>