Embroidery for the Modern Church

In 1995, a small unused room in the Icon Painting School at the Moscow Orthodox Theological Academy was converted into a studio for a single student interested in the lost art of church embroidery. This became the Pictorial Embroidery Department of the Icon Painting School housed in a larger facility within the famous Trinity-St. Sergius…

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A Carver’s Commission

  At the beginning of this story is my bishop, fittingly also the man who received me into the Orthodox Church when he was still a parish priest.  He asked me if I could carve an “engolpion” – a large pendant worn by bishops, usually bearing an icon of  The Virgin and Child. He asked…

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Liturgical Arts and the Eye of the Heart

Beauty cannot compel, but it can call. Liturgical art and worship, when well executed, is a fragrance of paradise that beckons us to find its divine source. In this article I want to discuss one particular role of liturgical art: to help open the eye of our heart, or the nous as it is called…

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The Holy Ascension Choros

  The Holy Ascension choros, which was completed Pascha 2012, has been a project eight years in the making. In 2004, my wife and I were on our way to Charleston, SC for my first job out of architecture school – to design Holy Ascension Orthodox church. On our way, we stopped in New York…

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The Recovery of the Arts

This is post 1 of 3 in the series “The Recovery of The Arts” Jonathan Pageau Examines the duality in the traditional vision of art, and how it is transformed by Christ, moving from the garments of skin to liturgical art and how this vision contrasts to contemporary notions art. The Recovery of the Arts…

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