Columba Stewart


Columba Andrew Stewart is an American Benedictine monk, scholar, and the executive director of the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library in Collegeville, Minnesota. His principal scholarly contributions have been in the field of monastic studies—both Benedictine and Eastern Christian.

Education

Born and raised in Houston, Texas, and a graduate of Lamar High School in Houston, Stewart received his A.B. in history and literature from Harvard University in 1979, magna cum laude. He earned his M.A. in religious studies at Yale University in 1981. After studying liturgical history, systematic theology, and scripture at Saint John's University School of Theology, he earned his D.Phil. from University of Oxford in 1989, writing his thesis on Greek and Syriac asceticism.

Religious life

Stewart professed vows as a monk at Saint John's Abbey in July 1982. On June 8, 1990, he was ordained to the priesthood.

Career

Stewart has been the executive director of the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library since 2003. Working closely with international church leaders, governments and cultural organizations, Stewart has supervised the digitization of largely Christian manuscript collections from Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and India. He has also led initiatives focused on the digitization of Islamic manuscripts through his partnerships with libraries in the Middle East, Africa, and India. He also oversees the organization's headquarters in Collegeville, Minnesota.

Areas of research and training

Because of both his scholarly contributions and preservation work at HMML, Stewart has appeared on the CBS News Program 60 Minutes, Harvard magazine, "Preserving Words and Worlds", "Ancient Christians in India", the BBC, "A Monk Saves Threatened Manuscripts Using Ultramodern Means", "Codices Decoded", In the Footsteps of the Apostles, "Monastery Works to Preserve Ancient Christian Texts", and "Saving the Sacred".

Selected works

Stewart has published on monastic, Benedictine, and linguistic topics, including:
Stewart was a 2016 Guggenheim Fellowship awardee. The fellowship supported Stewart's work on a new history of the origins of Christian monasticism.. He was chosen by the National Endowment for the Humanities to be the 2019 .