PaTRAM Master Class held in Holy Trinity Monastery and Seminary during Cheese-Fare Week
Editor’s Note: The following is a guest submission from Deacon Ephraim Willmarth of Holy Trinity Seminary. ____________________________________________ From Monday, February 24 to Thursday, February 28, a group of church singers and directors gathered in Holy Trinity Monastery and Seminary to rehearse and study with Maestro Vladimir Gorbik, choirmaster of the Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra Dependency…
Continue reading »Update on the Dome Frescoes at Santa Rosa, CA
Iconographer Fr. Patrick Doolan and his assistant, Father Moses, continue their extraordinary fresco work at St. Seraphim of Sarov Orthodox Church in Santa Rosa, CA (OCA). They have recently completed the angel range of the dome. (The first phase – the Pantocrator – was described in this article from last fall.) These photos show their work over…
Continue reading »Holy Icons in Today’s World (Pt.1): Insight into Contemporary Issues
Editor’s note: This is the first part of a talk given by Aidan in Texas last December (1). Images are taken directly from his presentation. We are made to be gods by grace, sons and daughters of the Living God. If we only saw what majesty and dignity is bestowed upon each of us here…
Continue reading »Adapting a Painted Icon to Carving
One of the exciting aspects of the renewal in icon carving we have seen in the last few decades is how this renewal is in a constant dialogue with painted icons. One of the visible goals, one of my own goals, is a search to infuse into the carved image some of the visual aspects…
Continue reading »Book Review: Icons in Time, Persons in Eternity
I believe Dr. Cornelia Tsakiridou’s book, Icons in Time, Persons in Eternity, published by Ashgate press in 2013, is one of the most important books about icons published since the classic work, The Meaning of Icons, an audacious claim given the monumental nature of Ouspensky’s and Lossky’s work. Icons in Time, Persons in Eternity asks…
Continue reading »Further Efforts Toward a Christian Culture
Editor’s Note: Though the following is not directly related to the traditional liturgical arts of the Orthodox Church, it is important to highlight the efforts of those who borrow from the art within the Church in order to influence and engage contemporary culture without. What Nicholas Kotar and his colleagues are doing is cultural missionary…
Continue reading »A Contemporary Opus Sectile Icon
Last year, I promised our readers that I would try to create an opus sectile icon, that is an icon that joins different stones together to make an image. I recently had the chance to create something that is a mix of carving and mosaic and is probably as close as I am going to…
Continue reading »Russian Wooden Churches
For those readers interested in architecture or those interested in Russian Orthodox cultural heritage, the website by architect Richard Davies is a wonder. Davies stumbled across of set of postcards from 1911 that featured some old photos and drawings of wooden churches in Russia. Inspired by the postcards, Davies traveled to Russia in 2002 to…
Continue reading »The Lives of the Saints
This is post 1 of 3 in the series “Lives of the Saints” Nicholas Kotar thinks through how the often fantastical stories in the life of the saints can still be relevant and teach us about how the world exists even today in our materialist culture. The Lives of the Saints Lives of the Saints:…
Continue reading »Orthodox Banners for the March for Life
New World Byzantine Studios donated new banners for the Orthodox delegation to the annual March for Life, which took place on January 22nd in Washington D.C. The project began when members of Saint Vladimir’s Seminary expressed a desire for attractive new banners that would project the character and dignity of Orthodoxy. Andrew Gould designed and made them…
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