Early Arabic Printing for the Arabic-Speaking Christians
Cultural Transfers between Eastern Europe and the Ottoman Near East in the 18th Century
ERC-AdG-2019-TYPARABIC project is funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, Grant Agreement No 883219.






Our colleague Mihai Tipau’s Open Access new book is now downloadable from De Gruyter. This is the first monograph on Sylvester of Antioch, a major figure of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch, after the 1724 schism.






Saint John of Damascus Institute of Theology is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. Topic: Historical Journeys and Legacies of the Orthodox Patriarchs of Antioch Time: Dec 4, 2024 02:30 PM Beirut Join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/6721757988?




Ioana Feodorov and several team members will meet on Friday, November 29, in Rome for the conference convened by PIO. The event will be accompanied by the launch of a collected works volume dedicated to the 1724 schism in the Church of Antioch, to which several team members have contributed. Vera Tchentsova will speak about “The Entangled Histories of the Church of Antioch between Sultans and Popes.”
The TYPARABIC team will be in Râmnicu-Vâlcea next week to hold a special panel at the autumn conference organized by the Archbishopric of Râmnic in honor of the St Hierarch and Martyr Antim the Iberian, whose feast is celebrated on September 27. The team’s contribution comes also in the form of a book exhibition where Arabic early printed books and new sources on Arabic printing will be displayed.



31st Congress of the
Union Européenne des Arabisants et Islamisants (UEAI 31)
“Dynamics between Power and Society in Islam”
Granada, 9-14 September 2024
WEDNESDAY 11 September
SESSION 19
Habib Ibrahim – “The Correspondence of Mūsā Ṭrābulsī: New Insights”
SESSION 27
Ioana Feodorov – “Arabic Printing in Bucharest in Ottoman times for the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch. Recent Findings”



Ioana Feodorov, PI of the TYPARABIC project, has spent a few days surveying the Arabic sources and corpus books in the National Library of Madrid and the Humanities Library of the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. She discovered a new, very rare exemplar of a book printed at Khenchara/Shuwayr, known to exist in only three copies worldwide, and established the relevant collections held by these and other libraries in Madrid. This proves to be a rich source for the TYPARABIC project that the team needs to investigate further.


On Wednesday 10 July, TYPARABIC team members Archim. Policarp Chițulescu, Charbel Nassif, Octavian-Adrian Negoiță and Radu Dipratu presented their papers at the 55th International Conference of ARAM Society for Syro-Mesopotamian Studies, entitled “Orientalism and Western Travellers to the Levant, 1500-1950”, hosted by the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Oxford. The team members engaged in fruitful discussions with the conference organiser, Fr. Shafiq Abouzayd, and the other presenters. A visit to the Bodleian Library followed the conference panels.





Today, the TYPARABIC project team is celebrating the end of its third year of joint work and the beginning of the fourth. We met virtually and spent an hour reminiscing and making plans for the future – and the last – two years of our collaboration aimed at fulfilling the project tasks. Proud of our achievements, we are looking forward to the challenges ahead. Congratulations, everyone!




Brill has released the first volume of Paul of Aleppo’s journal, covering the opening section on the history of the bishops of Antioch and the travels as a companion of his father, Patriarch Makarios III ibn al-Za’im, in Syria, Constantinople, Moldavia, Wallachia, and the Cossacks’ lands. Authored by Ioana Feodorov, PI of the TYPARABIC project, with Yulia Petrova, Mihai Țipău, and Samuel Noble, the book contains a rich introductory study, the Arabic edition, the English translation, indexes, maps, and figures. Printing is referred to in the section describing the Syrians’ visit to the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra press and discussions about translating and printing important Greek patristic texts.





On May 28, the TYPARABIC team and several partners will convene a study day around the book corpus that the BULAC exhibition presents to the public. Details are available on the poster and program announcement.


On May 27, the BULAC in Paris will open an exhibition co-organized with the TYPARABIC project. The exhibition will display Arabic books printed for the Christians of Ottoman Syria until the end of July.

Despre noi
Membrii proiectului cercetează contextul și consecințele tipăririi de cărți liturgice, patristice și polemice în limba arabă, în secolul al XVIII-lea, în provinciile otomane din răsăritul Mediteranei, pentru arabii creștini de rit bizantin și pentru cei catolici. Ei realizează o analiză aprofundată a legăturilor dintre Țările Române și alte state est-europene, pe de o parte, și creștinii de expresie arabă din Imperiul Otoman, pe de altă parte, din perspectiva progresului social pe care l-a adus în Orientul Apropiat cultura tiparului, la care românii au contribuit în mod esențial. Cercetarea vizează în primul rând transferul de tehnologie a tiparului din Țara Românească și Moldova către ținuturile răsăritene guvernate de Înalta Poartă, în beneficiul creștinilor arabofoni. În al doilea rând, este întocmit un catalog sistematic și comentat al cărților arabe tipărite între 1701 și 1800 în Țările Române, în Siria și Libanul de azi și în ținuturile învecinate.