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Full name Henri Eugene Xavier Loius Hyvernat

Born 30 June 1858, Saint-Julien-en-Jarret, Département Loire, France; died 30 May 1941, Washington, United States.

In 1897, he was appointed the first professor and founding director of the Department of Oriental Studies at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. (Wikipedia page [1]) He was interested in the late ancient world, middle ages, and early modern history of the Christian Orient, and was responsible for establishing the library of te Departments for Semitic and Egyptian languages and literature for the Institute of Oriental Christian Research. He acquired much literary material, which now forms the core of the library of the Department of Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures and the Institute of Christian Oriental Research. His research focused on the heritage of the Christian-Eastern communities and is unique in the United States.

Linked with several discoveries of ancient Christian documents in the 20th century in Egypt, including the Coptic Library, St Michael's monastery. Involved in the purchase of its collection of some 50 manuscripts by John Pierpoint Morgan (Wikipedia page [2]).

Ethel Lilian Voynich gave Prof Henri Hyvernat of the Catholic University of America a photostatic copy of the Voynich Manuscript. Hyvernat being busy Fr Theodore Petersen, his assistant, took on the task of researching the VM.

Some details of his activities can be found at [3] and [4]: details of his career at the Catholic University are here [5] and some more information here [6].

More information on the English [7] and German [8] Wikipedia pages. The Wikisource page, listing his contributions to the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia, is [9].

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