In Babel long ago they wanted to build a tower that would reach heaven, and in Belfast in 1912 they wanted to build a ship that nothing could sink. When, in April of that year, the Titanic did sink, the aspirations and pride of the late Victorian era sank with it. I like to think […]
Archimandrite Sophrony, painting Christ at the Last Supper, early 1980s, the Monastery of St John the Baptist, Refectory.[1] Image: ©The Stavropegic Monastery of Saint John the Baptist, Essex. Editorial note: This is the second part of a series on the artistic path and iconographic legacy of Saint Sophrony (Sakharov) as seen through a collection […]
In this newly published book, Mary Lowell describes the eighty-six icons and murals painted by Ksenia Pokrovsky (1942-2013) for St Andrew’s Orthodox church in Lexington, Kentucky. The icons and this book about them comprise a graphic account of the history of salvation, a visual catechism. The icons depict not just the major feasts of the […]
Interviewed by Natalia Gorenok Translated by Vladimir Morosan The art of Church singing as an integral part of the life of the Church, like the Church itself [in Russia], is experiencing a period of revival. Along the way, there are still many difficulties, because many of the traditional practices among choirmasters and church singers were […]
From December 11, 2015 to January, 19, 2016 (Moscow, Russia) “Tsar’s Tower” exhibition hall, in Kazansky railway station, hosted a large-scale exhibition entitled “Contemporary Iconographers of Russia”. The exhibit featured sixty iconographers, masters of mosaic and gold embroidery, jewelers as well as architects from Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Ekaterinburg, Vladimir, Archangelsk and other Russian cities. The exhibit showcased an […]
Editor’s note: I had the great privilege of traveling to Russia in 2006 with Fr. Ilya Gotlinsky of Orthodox Tours. It was a superb experience, in every respect. Fr. Ilya leads tours regularly, but I would like to call attention to a special upcoming tour – a pilgrimage tour that will visit Russia’s most […]
This past fall I had the opportunity to visit a construction project that is nothing short of a miracle. I saw a group of mostly volunteers and amateurs, working with small donations, building a church to rival any monument in the history of Christendom. The project was recently completed, consecrated by His Holiness, Patriarch Kirill, […]
This is post 1 of 2 in the series “The Question of Polychrome for Liturgical Woodcarving” Among the traditional liturgical arts, one that stands out as being especially healthy and prolific nowadays is decorative woodcarving. Especially in Greece, workshops produce intricately carved church furnishings in impressive quantities. Almost every Greek church the world over […]
Rashid and Inessa Azbuhanov are recognized as forerunners in the rediscovery of the carved icon and we have featured their work here before. This time we present a feature interview with the Azbuhanov couple thanks to the kind collaboration of Paul Stetsenko who translated the whole interview from Russian into English for us. The Azbuhanovs carvings circulate in the […]
Editor’s note: This article continues Aidan Hart’s recent article about a reliquary for Saint Vincent of Zaragoza and details Christabel Anderson’s process for making the cloisonnée icon. This article contains a background to the history and technique of cloisonné enamel and a description of the processes used in making the cloisonné enamel icon plaque of Saint Vincent […]