5 most unusual icons of the Virgin: wacky stories and revealing details

Today we want to talk about the most mysterious and incomprehensible sacred images, explaining where the strange characters come from and what the unexpected details mean.

Right now on Volkhonka at the Art Center. Moscow” hosts the exhibition “Faces of Mary – Images of Light”, which presents 18 paintings by Veronika Ponomareva-Korzhevskaya. The artist, although she calls her works paintings and not icons, creates them with strict observance of the old canon, and therefore one of his works may surprise.

On the canvas “The Liberator from Infertility” the Mother of God is depicted pregnant. It seems strange – although this stage of the life of the Mother of God is sung in sacred texts, such an image on icons is unusual for us. Indeed, it is not accepted in Eastern and Western iconography, but it is often found in Rus’.

The plot of the “Not Idle Mother of God” came to us from Georgia, where she was depicted on icons and frescoes. One of the oldest surviving murals dates back to the 15th century and is in the Convent of the Dormition in Dirby. In Georgia and Rus’, the image of the “Not Idle” was associated with an episode when Joseph drives his pregnant wife out of the house, having learned that the child is not his, and therefore the Virgin Mary cries often on the icon, pressing his palm to his face.

The mood of Veronika Ponomareva-Korzhevskaya’s painting is completely different. Thereupon, the gesture of the Virgin expresses tenderness, she seems to listen to new life, and in the background behind the Most Pure is a spring garden that has just begun to bloom. The artist painted the canvas when a long-awaited child appeared in her life after 10 years of struggle for motherhood.

In Rus’, the icon “The Virgin Mary Who Is Not Idle” enjoyed special veneration among pregnant women and women in childbirth. It was believed, for example, that it helps to safely solve the burden, and in some regions of Ukraine it was customary to cut the umbilical cord of a newborn baby directly on the icon – so that traces of the instrument remain there.

This unusual image appeared at the end of the XVII century, when coats of arms appeared literally everywhere – from architectural structures to book covers. Icons have not escaped this fate either. At the same time, the icon painter was inspired by secular painting – a portrait of Princess Sofya Alekseevna, where she is written in the center of the coat of arms of the Russian Empire.

The “winged” image went to the people in the 18th century during Golitsyn’s campaigns against Azov. The Azov icon of the Mother of God became a symbol of the war for faith, and soon many variations appeared: on some the Mother of God sits on the back of an eagle, on others – the wings are represented in such a way that they seem to belong to him.

The first thought that arises at the sight of this icon: the master has miscalculated the number of hands! But temples were erected in honor of the “Three Hands”, there is even a special liturgical chant dedicated to him. Could this happen if the sacred image contained an error? Of course not!

According to the Greek text on the acts of Saint John of Damascus, this saint opposed iconoclasm, which angered the ruler of Byzantium, Leo III. The emperor could not deal with John, because he lived in Damascus and was a minister at the Caliph’s court. The lion slandered John and the angry caliph ordered his subject’s hand to be cut off as punishment. However, the saint put it in his hand, prayed before the icon of the Mother of God, and the brush grew back. After that, John made a silver hand and applied it to the sacred image as a sign of gratitude for the miracle.

It is this precious hand that artists have copied, copying the icon. They represented the third hand of metal and not belonging to the Mother of God, however, by the time the image came to Rus’, the “color” was lost – and so the image of the Three Hands appeared.

A new legend was born among the peasants, explaining the strange anatomy of the Virgin Mary. According to legend, once a woman had to run away from robbers, and a river appeared on her way. The Most Pure threw herself into the water, but it was difficult for her to swim with the baby in her arms, then she prayed: “My son, give me a third hand!” The baby heard the mother’s request, she developed a third hand and she reached the shore unscathed.

But there is something even stranger than the third hand – in Greece, on the islands of Lesvos and Rhodes, the image of the Virgin … with a fishtail is very common. It is believed that this image came to the painting of literature and modern literature: in 1949, Stratis Mirivilis’ novel “The Virgin Mary Mermaid” was published, where this image appeared, which is allegedly in the one of the churches of Lesbos.

It is unlikely that the writer was inspired by Andersen’s fairy tale: most likely, he relied on real iconography. The 16th-century Last Judgment fresco at Perivolis Monastery in Lesvos is painted on the theme of the Second Coming, and it depicts the Virgin Mary seated on the back of Leviathan, and fish swim around her, spitting out parts of human bodies.

“Then the sea gave up the dead who were in it” – these are the verses that the composition illustrates. Probably, Mirivilis created a book image under the impression of a fresco, and it is not surprising that on the islands where the sea literally feeds people, the Virgin-mermaid – Panagia Gorgon – is still incredibly popular.

Today in Russia, icon painting is on the rise, so new icons are constantly appearing. One of them – created in 2004, the image of the Mother of God, dressed in chainmail and a helmet – was called “The elected governor is victorious”. The kontakion containing this epithet was compiled as early as 626, when Constantinople was saved from the siege of the barbarians after a procession with the icon of the Mother of God.

According to one version, the monk who painted the icon in 2004 saw the Mother of God dressed as a warrior in a dream. There is another scenario: they say that the pilgrim photographed the icon of the Mother of God of Czestochowa, but the armor appeared in the picture – this inspired the icon painter to create a sacred image, where the chain mail symbolizes faith, and the helmet symbolizes the hope of salvation.

It should be noted that the epithets that the Mother of God is called in the sacred texts still inspire artists and icon painters. On the exhibition “Faces of Mary – Images of Light” the works of Veronika Ponomareva-Korzhevskaya are presented, whose names are taken from the church hymnography. You can get acquainted with the exhibition until November 9 – so we advise everyone who wants to look at the canvases, in which the canon and modern language have merged, to hurry!