On 25 February, 2014, Fr. Cosmas Shartz, an Orthodox monk from the Monastery of St. John of San Francisco (Manton, CA), gave a talk to the IBT staff and assembled guests. Fr. Cosmas shared his experience of working in the late 1990s and early 2000s to produce the English-language Orthodox Study Bible. The full title of this publication is The Orthodox Study Bible: Ancient Christianity Speaks to Today's World. It took a dedicated team of translators, editors and theologians more than a decade to produce this volume, which contains the text of the Bible together with Orthodox commentary, explanatory articles, prayers, illustrations, maps, etc. Fr. Cosmas, a scholar of ancient Greek, participated in the project as a translator, editor and coordinator. It was very interesting and valuable to hear his internal perspective on the history of the Orthodox Study Bible and the problems that had to be overcome in order to make it a reality.

Fr. Cosmas was invited by IBT to come to Moscow in order to take part in the Gagauz Bible translation project (southern Moldova), since he also knows the Gagauz language. Fr. Cosmas has agreed to serve as an exegetical advisor for the Gagauz project to produce a liturgical translation of the Gospels for use in the Orthodox Church in Gagauzia.