Adoc-Photos/Art Resource, NY

Under the auspices of the Russian Tsar Alexander II , Tischendorf set out for St. Catherine’s for the second time in 1859 to try and recover more of the Codex Sinaiticus. Alexander, as nominal head of the Russian Orthodox Church, had been reluctant to sponsor the Protestant, non-Russian Tischendorf, but he eventually agreed. In November of that year, the tsar was “presented” with 347 folios of the Codex Sinaiticus by a triumphant Tischendorf. However, not until a decade later, in 1869, was the gift made official and deposited in the Imperial Public Library of St. Petersburg.