Arthur Võõbus

[1][2] Arthur Vööbus was born in the village of Matjama, Tartu County, Livonia, Russian Empire as the son of a teacher.

In parallel, Arthur Vööbus worked in libraries and manuscript collections in Rome, Paris, London, Berlin and Leipzig on theological texts in Syriac.

In 1936 he married Ilse Luksep, a daughter of a wealthy merchant family, which, along with his job in a large parish, provided the material basis for his research.

In 1948, Vööbus immigrated to the United States and became chair of the New Testament and ancient church history at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (LSTC), where he taught from 1951 until his retirement in 1977.

In 1979, the collection moved from Vööbus’ home in Chicago to the newly-founded Institute of Syriac Manuscript Studies (ISMS), located in the JKM Library at LSTC.