In this icon we can clearly see the employment of two formal tendencies. On the one hand, the angel is depicted in swift movement, classical gracefulness and corporeality. On the other hand, St. Archippus is depicted more abstractly, utterly flat and still, as firm as the stone church behind him. The bodiless angel takes on form as he executes his task, whereas the bodily man becomes as if incorporeal in the attainment of dispassion.