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The Virgin Hodegetria of Smolensk is one of the most popular images in Old Russian painting. The original icon was allegedly brought to Russia by Princess Anna Monomachus of Byzantium, the bride of P...
This image is a version of the Virgin Hodegetria in which the Christ Child is half-turned towards His mother. Mary holds Jesus with her left arm and turns His left leg so that His bare foot is visibl...
Our Lady of the Sign is a waist-length image of the Virgin Mary with her hands raised upwards and a medallion on her breast depicting the Christ Child. Jesus’s right hand is raised in blessing; He ho...
The Coronation of the Virgin is not a traditional subject in Russian art and is rarely encountered in Orthodox church painting. The iconography of the subject was probably influenced by West European...
Our Lady of Vladimir belongs to the Tenderness (Greek: Eleusa ) type of Orthodox icons. The original work was painted in the first third of the twelfth century and brought from Constantinople to Kiev...
The composition incorporates the concept of the mystical union of Christ and the Church. Christ sits on a throne as the King of the World and High Priest, dressed in the robes of the Byzantine empero...
The subject of Our Lady of the Burning Bush is based on the Old Testament prophecy of the incarnation of Christ. Such theologians as St Gregory of Nyssa and Theodoret of Cyrrhus regarded Moses’s visi...
The Congregation of the Blessed Virgin Mary is celebrated by the Orthodox Church on the day after Christmas (26 December/8 January). The iconography is based on the words of an Orthodox hymn sung dur...
This subject is taken from the Life of St Andrew the Fool, who lived in the late ninth and early tenth centuries. Andrew had a vision of the Mother of God while praying with his disciple Epiphanios i...
The Dormition or Assumption of the Virgin is described in the apocryphal writings and expositions of St John the Theologian, Bishop John of Soluneia, St Andrew of Crete, Patriarch Herman of Constanti...