Our
Lady the Joy of All
Afflicted
Late 17th - early of 18th century
(after 1697). From the St. Nicholas Church in Tolmachi, Moscow.
The icon is a copy
of the miracle-working image of Our
Lady the Joy of All Afflicted
of the Transfiguration Church at Ordynka, Moscow. The worship started
in 1688, after it cured the sister of Patriarch Joachim. The icon,
probably, appeared in the church after it was rebuilt of stone in 1685.
The history of this icon is unclear. According to one version, it was
in the Church of Our Lady the Joy of All Afflicted at Ordynka on the
site of the Transfiguration Church, till it was closed in the Soviet
years. According to another hypothesis, the miraculous icon was taken
to St. Petersburg on order of Natalia, a sister of Peter the Great, in
1711, while a copy remained in Moscow. The Moscow and St. Petersburg
images have notable iconographic differences.
Known in Russia since the 1680s, the iconography of Our Lady the Joy of
All Afflicted emerged under spectacular influences of several Roman
Catholic types. Hence its many variants, largely differing on many
points. They have only one feature in common — the figures of sufferers
praying to the Virgin, the Protectress interceding for them. The St.
Petersburg icon, with no such figures, is the only exception. The
iconographic variant which includes both the Moscow and St. Petersburg
images has the crowned Virgin in the centre (often portrayed standing
on the moon), holding the Child, also crowned, on Her left arm, and
surrounded by a halo — the Roman Catholic type ascending to the words
of Revelation about the «woman clothed with the sun» (Rev
12:1). The
variant to which the miracle-working icon of Moscow belonged adds to
this image a crowd of sufferers divided in six groups — seniors, the
unclothed, the sick, the afflicted, the hungry and travellers, all
consoled by angels at Her bidding. These figures directly illustrate
the troparion to the icon, written in a cartouche in the lower part of
the composition. The Moscow icon has one definitive characteristic —
four saints to both sides of the Virgin, above the sufferers — Sergii
of Radonezh, Theodore of Sykeon, Gregory Decapolites and Barlaam of
Khutyn.
The icon repeats the iconography of the Moscow miraculous image closely
enough, and almost fully coincides with it in size. It may be seen as
one of the oldest replicas of this type. It changes the arrangement of
the four supplementary saints, and replaces St. Gregory Decapolites by
Gregory of Neocaesarea — perhaps, due to the topographical closeness of
the St. Nicholas Church at Tolmachi and the Church of St. Gregory of
Neocaesarea at Polyanka.
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Our_Lady_of_Vladimir
Late 11th - early
12th century, Byzantium. The earliest references to the icon are found
in the oldest chronicles (entries for
1155). The first Story was compiled in Vladimir at Prince Andrei
Bogolubsky's court in the 1160s. Prince Andrei took the icon with him
when he acquired the throne of Vladimir and Suzdal. He ordered for the
holy image a gold case, and placed it in the new Dormition Cathedral of
Vladimir. Though some miracles of the icon were known in Kiev, the peak
of its glory came in Vladimir. When Tamerlane's horde invaded Russia in
1395, the image was brought to Moscow for heavenly intercession to ward
off the city's doom — and miraculous deliverance did come. The Story
was composed some years later, when the worship of the icon became even
more dedicated. It came to Moscow for good in 1480. In the next century
the icon became the palladium of Moscow and the most important among
Russian holy relics. The icon is commemorated three times a year:
August 26 (Moscow's deliverance from the Tartar siege of 1395), June 23
(final transfer of the icon to Moscow, and the bloodless victory over
Tartars on the Ugra river, 1480), and May 21 (Moscow's deliverance from
Khan Mahmet Ghirei in 1521). At these feasts there were the liturgical
processions with the original icon or its copy. The image belongs
to the iconographic type known as Tenderness (Umilenie) or Eleusa. It
prototyped many Russian iconographic variants of the Virgin Tenderness,
connected with some miraculous icons of local worship.
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1606. Prokopii Chirin.
This icon is the
oldest of all known copies of its miraculous original, unearthed in
Kazan on July 8, 1579, after the Virgin thrice
appeared in prophetic dreams to a little girl Matrona and told her the
spot where secret Christians had buried Her image before the Russian
victory over Muslim Kazan. Hermogene, Metropolitan of Kazan, active in
these events, later described them in the special Story he composed on
request of Tsar Fedor loannovich in 1595. In 1612 the miraculous icon
was in the Russian army which delivered Moscow from Polish occupiers.
This success was ascribed to the intercession of Our Lady of Kazan. The
icon was considered to protect the Romanov dynasty, and became one of
Russia's best-worshipped holy images during its reign. It is
commemorated twice a year — July 8, the day it was found, and October
22, the day of Moscow's deliverance. In these days the liturgical
processions with the icon were established: from the Dormition
Cathedral of the Kremlin to the Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan on the
Red Square (1636), which was the abode of the miracle-working icon.
Like the Hodegitia of Constatinople, the Kazan icon was bearing in
solemn processions along the city walls as a major protectress of
Moscow. In the early 19th century another cathedral of Our Lady of
Kazan rose in St. Petersburg, whose patron image it was. To this
magnificent church in Nevsky Avenue Fieldmarshal Kutuzov donated the
trophy silver captured from the French army in the Napoleonic War of
1812. In World War II, the icon led a procession round the fortifica
tions of the nazi-besieged Leningrad.
The icons of Our Lady of Kazan are traditionally small, following the
miraculous original (27 x 22.5 cm). An iconographic variant of the
Hodegitria, it is mainly noted for the Child standing, with the Virgin
chest-length — one of the reduced images widespread in the 16th
century. Prokopii Chirin's icon of 1606 is notable for attention to
small details, characteristic of so named Stroganov school .
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Our
Lady of Tikhvin
1706. Yakov Molchanov.
From the
Resurrection Church at Kadashi, Moscow.
This icon is a copy of one of the most famous Russian miraculous
images. According to the chronicles, the icon
The iconography of Our Lady of Tikhvin is close to the Byzantine type
of Hodegetria. The gesture of Christ is its most spectacular
characteristic, with the right hand in blessing over the hand of the
Virgin. The icon of Kadashi, closely repeated the iconographic type of
the original, follows traditions of the icon-painting workshop at the
Armoury Palace of the Moscow Kremlin. The choice of the marginal saints
(Apostle Peter, Sergius of Radonezh, Alexius the Man of God and John
the Warrior) must have depended on the donor's request miraculously
appeared in summer 1383 in the environs of
Novgorod. The Story of the Icon of Tikhvin (16th century) registers its
four apparitions following each other, the latest on the left bank of
the river Tikhvinka, where a Dormition Church was first built. Later,
in 1560, the Tikhvin Monastery arose on the site. The long siege of the
monastery by the Swedish army in 1613-1615 was a crucial moment in the
history of the icon worship after its miraculous intercession for the
besieged. The most detailed redaction of the Legend of its miracles
appeared in 1658, in the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich. It included for
the first time the Byzantine prehistory of the holy image, which
identified it with the Hodegetria of Constantinople, which miraculously
left the Byzantine capital to reappear in Tikhvin. A service in
commemoration of the icon, on June 26, was compiled together with the
Story. The miracle-working original was in the Tikhvin Monastery for
several century before 1941, when the area was occupied by nazis. Taken
to Western Europe, it eventually travelled across the Atlantic, and now
is at Sts. Peter and Paul's Cathedral in Chicago..
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Our
Lady of the Don
End of 14th century.
Moscow From the
Dormition cathedral in Kolomna.
The icon is first mentioned in chronicles of the second half of the
16th century. Its worship is connected with the
As the processional image, placed behind the altar table of the
Dormition Cathedral of Kolomna, the icon had a reverse image of the
Dormition. There are two hollows for the relics, closed in with wax, on
the bottom margin of the face side. The icon was painted for the
Dormition Cathedral of Kolomna in the 1380s or 90s. The majority of
experts trace it to the works of the painter of the Deesis Row of the
Kremlin Annunciation Cathedral, identified as Theophanes the Greek
campaigns of Ivan the Terrible against the Tartar
states which had emerged on the ruins of the Golden Horde, and
reminiscences of the victory over Tartars in the Battle of Kulikovo, on
the river Don, in 1380. It was in the reign of Ivan the Terrible that
the Moscow Prince Dimitrii Ivanovich, who commanded the battle,
received his honourable surname of Donskoi, shared by the Dormition
Church in Kolomna, founded by him before the battle, and the ancient
icon of Our Lady in this church. Tsar Ivan took the icon in his Kazan
military expedition of 1552 and, after the victory, placed it in the
Annunciation Cathedral of the Kremlin. In 1591, Tsar Fedor loannovich's
prayer before it preceded the miraculous deliverance of Moscow from the
besieging troops of Khan Kazi Ghirei. This miracle was commemorated by
the foundation of the Donskoi Monastery, which received an exact
replica of the miraculous image. Many sermons and legends were composed
about this image, which combined true historical facts borrowed from
the 16th century chronicles with the 17th century tales of its presence
on the Kulikovo battlefield (the icon was said to be presented to
Prince Dimitrii by the Don cossacks during the battle). Early copies
testify to the emergence of the worship in the 15th century. Its annual
commemoration on August 19, with a procession to the Donskoi Monastery,
was established in the mid-17th century. Our Lady of the Don represents
the iconography of Tenderness — a variant close to Our Lady of
Vladimir, from which it differs by the Child's bare legs, bent at the
knee and resting on the Virgin's hand.
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Our_Lady_of_St._Theodore
1759. From the
Trinity Chapel of the Dormition Church at Apukhtinka, Moscow.
The icon copies the miracle-working Our Lady of St. Theodore from the
Dormition Cathedral of Kostroma, currently in the
Resurrection Church at Debri, also in Kostroma. According to its
Legend, compiled in the 17th century at the earliest, holy martyr Theodore Stratilates carried the
image from the Tartar-ransacked Gorodets on the Volga to Kostroma in
1239 — hence its name. Prince Vassilii of Kostroma, surnamed Kvashnya
(Trough), saw the icon in a tree on a woodland hunt. Kostroma citizens
were reported to see it carried across the city by a warrior resembling
St. Theodore. The icon sent passing blindness on a Tartar host in the
Battle of Holy Lake to grant victory to Prince Vassilii.
The icon was closely linked to the Romanov dynasty since the 17th
century. It played a part in the election of Mikhail Fedorovich to the
throne in Kostroma, 1613. Hence its full name, Our Lady of St. Theodore
of Kostroma. It is commemorated on March 14, the day when Mikhail
conceded to accept the crown, and August 15 and 16, when it was
miraculously revealed. The royal dynasty spread the icon worship
nation-wide.
Iconographically close to Our Lady of Vladimir, it has one spectacular
feature — the Child's bare left leg. Possibly, Our Lady of Vladimir
possessed the same detail before it was repainted in the 15th
century.
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Hodegitria
1482. Dionysii.
From the Cathedral
of the Ascension Convent, Moscow Kremlin.
This miraculous icon was painted on a much older board. The original
icon is known from the chronicles to be
The ancient icon of the Kremlin convent, copied from the
Constantinopolitan Hodegitria, is presumed to be one of the two icons
brought to Russia in the 14th century by Archbishop Dionysii of Suzdal,
a confessor to Princess Eudoxia, foundress of the Ascention convent.
The icon was commemorated on July 7, the day of Princess Eudoxia's
demise, which coincided with the feast of the Hodegitria of
Blachernitissa, brought to Moscow in 1654. The icon of the Ascension
Convent led religious processions on June 23 and August 26, in which
Metropolitans, the Patriarch and the Grand Princes took part. The
iconographic pattern of this particular image generally corresponds to
the Hodegetria of Blachernai, though digressing from it in some
details, for instance, the scroll which the Child holding, resting it
on His knee - a detail characteristic of several copies of Our Lady of
Smolensk, in particular, those of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Smolensk
in the Novodevichi Convent, Moscow destroyed in the
conflagration of 1482: «The icon of Hodegitria burnt in Moscow in
the stone Church of the Ascension of Our Lord, a miracle-working image
of Our Lady of Greek painting. It was made in the same dimensions as
the miraculous icon in Constantinople which did leave its abode for the
seaside on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The fire destroyed the painting and
the case alone, while the board survived, and on this board Dionysii
the icon-painter hath recreated the same image.».
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1755. Onisii Korpin.
This mid-18th
century copy repeated the waist-length Our Lady of Tolga, traditionally
known as revealed at the
The protograph of the miracle-working image is preserved at the
Yaroslavl Art Museum. The iconography belongs to the Tenderness type,
deviating from it by the Child's posture, standing on His Mother's lap
touching Her breast with the left hand. The icon of 1755 repeats the
basic iconographic characteristics of the protograph, and rather
closely imitates its size, though the colour scheme is thoroughly
changed, which shows that the original was covered with a later
painting at the time it was copied confluence of the
Tolga and the Volga near Yaroslavl in 1314. The Tolga Convent was later
founded on the site. According to the Legend, which appeared to the
17th century, the icon was revealed by Archbishop Tryphon of Rostov at
the Tolga - Volga confluence. The archbishop suddenly woke in the dead
of night to see wonderful radiance across the river. He forded the
river as if a bridge had spread underfoot to see on the opposite bank a
pillar of fire reaching to the sky, and an icon of Our Lady hovering in
the air. His servants found a replica of this icon on a forest tree the
next day. The miracle made Tryphon put off a planned journey to have a
church built on the spot. A convent arose there later. The icon worship
was local before the mid-17th century, which gave it a national scope.
The icon is commemorated August 8. The service to it was composed in
1699.
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Our_Lady_of_Igor
Middle of the16th century. Moscow.
Tradition links the
protograph of this icon with Prince Igor Olegovich of Chernigov and
Novgorod-Seversky.
His ascent to the
Kievan throne in 1146 triggered off popular unrest, and the citizens
called Izyaslav Mstislavich to reign. The Igor's troops were routed. He
took monastic vows and entered the St. Theodore monastery at Kiev. The
feudal strife went on, and led Igor to martyrdom. He was seized in his
monastic cell, tormented and killed in 1147, on September 19 (his
commemoration day).
Before his cruel death, the prince prayed before his cell-icon which
later came to be known as Our Lady of Igor and earned the reputation of
miracle working.
The icon is commemorated June 5, the day when Prince Igor's relics were
buried with honours in 1150.
As late as the start of this century, the protograph — encased in
gilded silver and with an inscription relating its history — was in the
chapel of St. John the Divine of the Dormition Cathedral at the Kiev
Cave Monastery. It is now gone, but numerous copies are available.
A reduced shoulder-length variant of the renowned Our Lady of Vladimir,
most of its copies repeat the small size of the protograph, intended
for a monastic cell, and closely follow the iconography of Our Lady of
Vladimir.
Its iconographic composition reflects the ancient practice of copying
much-worshipped icons reduced in size. This, perhaps, was how the
iconography of Our Lady of Igor emerged as a miniature copy of the
Constantinopolitan image before it was taken from Kiev by Prince Andrei
Bogolubsky eventually to become known as Our Lady of Vladimir.
The Tretyakov collection icon closely follows the original iconography,
which was characteristic of the time of Metropolitan Macarii
(1542-1563), whose Novgorodian and Moscow workshops imitated old
venerated icons down to the smallest iconographic detail .
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1668. Simon Ushakov.
From the church of
St. Gregory of Neocaesarea at Bolshaya Polyanka, Moscow.
The Simon Ushakov's icon was a copy from the ancient miracle-working
Our Lady Eleousa of Kykkos, the best-worshipped icon of Cyprus.
According to the Byzantine legend, composed in 1422, the icon appeared
in the reign of Alexius I Comnenus (1081-1118).
Tradition traces it to St. Luke and
Egyptian Early Christian communities.
The icon was renown with the miraculous healing of the Emperor and his
daughter. Alexius Comnenus sent the icon to Cyprus, keeping a precise
copy to himself, and made lavish donations to monk Isaiah, who accepted
the holy image and founded a monastery of Our Lady Eleousa on Mount
Kykkos.
Numerous miracles known the icon was worshipped by
Christians & Muslims.
The Ottoman Empire exempted the monastery from taxes for its sake.
Up to present time the image is preserved at its church in a special
case. A precious veil has half-concealed the image, and no hand may
lift it. Our Lady Kykkotissa was commemorated on November 12, December
26 and January 15. Its Russian worship started at early 17th century,
and acquired the greatest scope in the south of the country.
The iconography of the image is close to Our Lady of the Passions. The
type of Kykkotissa made an impact on the Ducento iconography of the
Madonna. Unlike its protograph, the Tretyakov Gallery icon has the
Child left of the Virgin, resting on Her left arm. The background is
inscribed in Greek and Russian; the scroll, in Greek, «The Holy
Ghost hath come upon Me, and the power of the Highest overshadowed
Me». Another inscription bears the name of the Virgin in Greek,
Eleousa Kykkotiss a.
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Late 15th - first third of 16th century. North Russia From
the village
Chukhcherma near Archangelsk.
The Kozmin Monastery
of Dormition, founded by monk Cosmas on the Yakhren riverside, forty
kilometres off Vladimir in 1482, had several icons of special worship,
known as the Images of Yakhroma, or Yakhren.
At the beginning of this century one of them was reproduced by Nikodim
Kondakov as the miracle-working icon of Yakhren, revealed in 1482. Now
gone, it was presumably the best-worshipped image of this church. The
image represents the type of Tenderness, with the Child left, His face
pressed to the Virgin's. He is caressing Her chin with one hand, while
the other is held down. The Child is sitting with legs crossed. One
leg, the knee bent at a sharp angle, has the sole facing the viewer.
The Mother is supporting the Child with one hand, and pressing him to
Herself with the other, on which rests His palm held down.
The Tretyakov Gallery icon is one of the closest iconographic analogies
to this miracle-working image, though the Child is portrayed to the
right, as in all icons of this iconography and its variants. This
monochrome icon has elongated proportions. Stylistic characteristics
allow to date it to the end of the 15th century or beginning of the
16th, though its board presumably belongs to the 14th. The icon comes
from Chukhcherma village which was a property of the Trinity-Sergiev
Monastery, with which the Kozmin Monastery had close contacts .
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1707, Kirill Ulanov and his son Ivan. Moscow.
According to its
Legend, the icon known in Russia as Georgian was taken out of that
country by Persians.
It was purchased in Persia by the agents of the merchant Grigorii
Lytkin from Yaroslavl in 1622.
Instructed by a revelation, the merchant sent the icon to a monastery
on the Pinega riverside, in the Russian north, known as
Chernogorsky and later, Krasnogorsky. In 1654, the icon was brought to
Moscow, where it found renown for miraculous healings during a plague.
In memory of these miracles, the Trinity Church at Nikitniki, where the
icon stood, received a chapel consecrated to Our Lady of Georgia, for
which famous Simon Ushakov painted its close replica before the
original icon was taken back to the Pinega. The icon is gone, though
its concise description is extant in the monastery inventory.
The feast of the icon, August 22, the day it was first brought to the
monastery, was appointed in 1658. Its canon and troparion were composed
in 1698.
As far as we can judge by the icon of 1707, said to repeat the
original, and other copies, the iconography followed the type of
Hodegitria. The Virgin, full-face, has Her head slightly turned and
bent to the Child. The flaps of the maphorion part on the chest to show
the chiton. She has the Child on Her left arm, with the right hand in
the Deesis position in token of Her prayer to the Son. This
iconographic type has close analogies among Georgian monuments of the
15th and 16th centuries .
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Our_Lady_the_Fadeless_Blossom
1691. Tikhon Filatiev. Moscow. From the Nativity of the
Virgin church
at Golutvinsky lane, Moscow.
The Tretyakov Gallery icon repeats, with slight changes, the miraculous
image of the St. Alexii Convent in Moscow — Russia's oldest and
best-worshipped samples of this iconography, whose
present location is unknown. The first written reference to it dates to
1757, though the convent had possessed this icon long before. Its
commemoration, on April 3, appeared on the Orthodox Church calendar in
the 19th century. The convent nuns sang the troparion «The
Blossom of Fadeless Purity» in front of this icon.
The iconography emerged, most probably, at Mount Athos, in the 17th
century, and became especially widespread in the 19th under the impact
of an Athenian engraving. In Russia, the icons of Fadeless Blossom
appeared in engravings since the 18th century. The Tretyakov Gallery
image pertains to the oldest type, most probably ascending to an
unknown Athenian icon under a certain influence of the Western
iconographic tradition.
This sophisticated allegorical composition bases on the Old Testament
prototypes of the Virgin, and epithets belonging to Her hymnography.
In the centre of this icon are portrayed the Virgin and Child in royal
attire decorated with gold («the vestments lavishly
adorned», «the attire of gold»). The temple in the
background symbolises «the mansion of the King», while the
throne in front of the Virgin, on which the Saviour is standing
betokens Her closeness to the Heavenly Throne, while She Herself is
«the throne and the palace of the King».
The sun, moon, star, censer, candle and other items round the Virgin
and Child are prototypical symbols of Mary.
The flowering sceptre in Her hand reminds of another prototypical
Mariological symbol in the Old Testament, the sceptre of the Tree of
Jesse.
Last but not least, Mary as Virgin is tytled «The Fadeless
Blossom» — hence the vases of flowers and blooming branches
surrounding Her in this iconography .
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Our_Lady_"The_Hope_of_Sinners"
1840. Moscow.
The miraculous
original of this copy owes its name to the 7th century tale «On
the Penitence of Theophilus, Church Cellarer in the City of
Adan». Theophilus prayed before the icon of the Virgin named by
him «The hope of the sinners». Russia learned the tale
after St. Demetrii of Rostov included it in the Great Menology compiled
by him and first published in 1689 (entry for June 23). The Church
tradition relates several miracles performed by icons of The Hope of
Sinners in 18th century Russia. The 19th century considered the icons
of St. George Church at Bolkhov and the Church of the Nativity of
Christ at Palashi, Moscow, the oldest and best-known among these
images. The latter, an ancient miracle-working icon, is at present in
the church at Uspensky Vrazhek, Moscow.
The iconography has the following essential characteristics:
the
Virgin, seated, is represented about knee-length, with the Child
standing on Her lap, His right arm wound round the Mother, cheek
pressed to Her face. Mary's arms, encircling the Child with the fingers
interlocked, represent a rather rare iconographic type. The 19th
century tradition knew several lasting iconographic variants of this
icon, with the Virgin's head now covered, now bared. Some variants had
other positions of the arms. Sometimes there is a window on the left
with a landscape in it. All these variants ascend to one of the
worshipped originals whose iconographic characteristics they follow.
The service to this
image was compiled in Moscow in the 19th century on the basis of
general prayers to the Virgin and the Candlemas liturgy. The prayer to
Our Lady the Hope of Sinners was taken from a Russian translation of
the Tale of Theophilus. The icon is commemorated on February 5.
The Tretyakov Gallery icon must be an abbreviated copy of
the image in
the Resurrection Church at Tver, whose iconographic characteristics it
repeats, with Mary's head bared and the hair hanging loose down the
shoulders, and a window to the left. The image is encircled in an oval
— a specific feature of this particular icon. The oval is inscribed in
large lettering at the bottom: «Be brave, and I shall hearken and
intercede for thee» .
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Our_Lady_Mother_All_Glorified_Vsepetaia
18th century. Moscow. From St. Sergii Chapel, Dormition
Church at
Apukhtinka, Moscow.
The icon owes its
name to a verse from the Kontakion 13 of the Great Akathistos inscribed
in Church Slavonic on the edging of the Virgin's maphorion: «O
Mother All-Glorified, the Word Most Holy Who hast brought forth all
saints, accept this offering and save all who invoke Thee, Hallelujah,
from all affliction and the torment to come». This iconography
came to the Russian icon-painting in the 17th century. Its appearance
had no connection with the worship of any particular image. The
complicated iconographic interpretation was meant to demonstrate a
symbolic understanding of a particular iconohymnographic theme.
The earliest portrayal of the Mother All-Glorified appeared on the
sheets of the 17th century icon-painter's pattern-book. The icon
represents the Virgin waist-length, in a three-quarter turn, with the
hands slightly supporting the Child by the arms. His arms are raised,
resting on the Virgin's breast, as if to embrace Her. This iconography
often portrays the Virgin in a high royal crown, usually dressed in a
reddish-brown chiton and cherry-coloured «cloudy»
maphorion, symbol of Heaven, edged with the above-quoted words.
Angelic heads replace the three traditional stars on Her head and
shoulders. Some Orthodox theologians interpret these angels as the old
symbol of the Trinity. The 17th century might have associated this
iconographic interpretation with the East, in particular, Egypt and
Palestine, as reflected in the name of the icon, Of Arabia. The 19th
century commemorated the icon on October 6.
The Tretyakov Gallery image has the following characteristics: Mary has
no crown, and the Child is portrayed to the left — an extremely rare
variant. His unusual vestment — loincloth and himation — emphasizes the
theme of the Passions. In this particular icon, the himation has an
unique «cloudy» shape, enveloping and supporting Christ. Of
major interest are also the words which accompany the Kontakion 13 on
the maphorion edging — the initial passage of the Great Akathistos
Hymn: «Thou Glorious Victress Who smitest the evil, rejoice...
» .
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