Icons

This 19th century Russian lithographic icon depicts All Saints of Mount Athos. The most prominent and famous Athonite monastic saints are visible in the foreground, and the haloes of countless more saints, known and unknown, stretch into the distance...

    On the 40th day after His Resurrection, the Lord Jesus was taken up into heaven in His resurrected body. As the eleven Apostles stood on the Mount of Olives at Bethany, they watched Him disappear from view. An angel declared that He would...

Saint Athanasius was born to a Christian family in Alexandria in 295. He was ordained the bishop of Alexandria before he reached his thirtieth birthday, and became a leader of the Church even before that.  At the time that Athanasius was...

Saint Gabriel was born on March 22, 1684, in Zvierki (Zwierki, Poland). His parents, Peter and Anastasia, maintained their Orthodox faith despite the growth of Uniatism in the region. As a child, Gabriel preferred prayer and solitude rather than the...

This icon, also known as the Holy Face or Mandylion, portrays the face of Christ on a piece of cloth, carried by the Archangels Michael and Gabriel. According to Christian legend, King Abgar of Edessa wrote to Jesus, asking him to come cure him of an...

This icon of Christ Pantocrator was discovered in an old shed near Moscow in 1919. It is believed to have been painted by master iconographer Saint Andrei Rublev in the early 15th century. The heavily-damaged icon, discovered at the beginning of the...

Mid-Pentecost is celebrated on the Wednesday 25 days after Pascha, the halfway point between Pascha at Pentecost. This feast celebrates Christ as the Holy Wisdom of God, as the Gospel describes Him teaching in the temple to the astonishment of the...

Palm Sunday is the celebration of Christ's triumphal entry into the royal city of Jerusalem. Riding on a young donkey, he was met by a massive crowd who publicly hailed Him as king. They waved palm branches and laid their cloaks on the road before Him...

Saint Vladimir was the grandson of Saint Olga, who became a Christian at Constantinople. Vladimir's father Svyatoslav divided his kingdom among his three sons. Vladimir, at that time a fierce pagan, was granted the principality of Novgorod. He...

The Harrowing of Hades is the icon most often used to represent the Resurrection of Christ: the Feast of Feasts, Pascha (Easter). In this scene, Christ is seen coming out of the dark pit of Hades, bringing with Him all of the righteous Old Testament...

This beautiful 19th century Russian icon depicts the Lord's Descent into Hades, where he proclaimed the Resurrection to those bound there. He directs them upward, out of the jaws of Death to Paradise, cutting diagonally across the image. In the upper...

This stunning icon of the Harrowing of Hades includes many scenes not typically included in icons of the Resurrection. In the center, Christ can be seen standing on the Gates of Hades, pulling Adam and Eve with the Old Testament saints up out of the...

    Complete Set Available Here The Stations of the Cross is a powerful Western Christian devotion used during Lent and Holy Week. Also called "The Way of the Cross" (or in Latin, Via Crucis), it follows the journey of Christ from His...

"At that time Joseph of Arimathea, a noble councillor, who was also waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly in to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Pilate wondered if he were already dead, and after summoning the centurion he asked him if...

This 15th century icon shows Christ with his Apostles, who are talking amongst themselves in shock at the revelation that one of them would betray Christ. Judas, the betrayer, is seen reaching his hand into a bowl as the Gospel says. At this Passover...

The Prophet Joel lived some 800 years before Christ. One of the Minor Prophets, he prophesied of the coming of the Holy Spirit. He is commemorated on October 19.

Gideon was appointed by God as one of the Judges of Israel during the Old Testament. His feast is celebrated on September 26, and he is also remembered among the Old Testament righteous on the Sunday of the Forefathers in December.

Ruth lived about the 13th century before Christ. She was the great-grandmother of David, the King of Israel. During a time of famine in Israel, Elimelech and Naomi of Bethlehem took their sons and traveled to the nearby country of Moab. Elimelech died,...

Saint Aidan was a 7th century Irish missionary to Northumbria in northern England. Centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, its impacts were beginning to fade, and paganism was making a comeback in the British isles. With the support of...

Saint Cyprian served as bishop of Carthage in the Roman province of Africa (in modern Tunisia). He was baptized late in life, but his conversion was radical and swift. Because of his great zeal, he was ordained a deacon, then priest, then bishop within...

Saint George, sometimes called “the Trophy-bearer,” was born in the province of Cappadocia, Asia Minor (Turkey), in the third century and raised as a Christian. About age 20, he joined the Roman army under the emperor Diocletian,...

The Glorious Prophet, Forerunner, and Baptist John was the older cousin of our Lord. He was born miraculously of his aged parents, specially chosen by God to prepare the way for Christ, the Messiah. It was John who identified Jesus as "the Lamb of God...

Saint Paisios the Great was an Egyptian monastic father in the 5th century. His feast is celebrated on June 19.

Saint Porphyrios (or Porphyrius, or Porphyry), was the Bishop of Gaza 395-420, known from the account in his Life for Christianizing the recalcitrant pagan city of Gaza, and demolishing its temples. His feast day is celebrated on February 26.

Saint Tatiana lived in Rome in the early 3rd century. She was raised a Christian and served as a deaconess. After her prayers resulted in the miraculous destruction of various idols and pagan temples, she was arrested and brutally tortured. Her...

Saint Tatiana was the second daughter of Tsar St. Nicholas II and Tsarina St. Alexandra. She was born in 1897. She was widely known for her beauty and elegance, but within the Royal Family, she was a second maternal figure for her younger siblings...

Saint Cyrus was from Alexandria of Egypt. He attended university and became a physician, treating his patients free of charge and healing miraculously in the name of Christ. Under the persecutions of Diocletian, he fled to the Persian Gulf to join a...

This is an iconographic representation of the Akathist Hymn. The Prophets surround the Virgin Mary with scrolls of praise, and on the outer border there are feasts and scenes from the Theotokos' life. The Akathist Hymn is chanted on the fifth Saturday...

This fresco from the Slivnichki Monastery in Macedonia is part of a series based on the Akathist Hymn. The scene depicts the Theotokos as the Burning Bush of Moses. In the words of the Akathist Canon, " The great mystery of your childbirth did Moses...

The hodigitria (guide) genre of icons features Christ sitting on the Virgin's lap. Her hands point to her Son in a gesture of humility, guiding the viewer to look to Him. This particular icon is a 13th-century mosaic from Saint Catherine's...

Outside the city of Constantinople, there was a sacred spring dedicated to the Virgin Mary. A monastery grew up there in the 5th century, and over time the spring was overgrown by a grove of trees. The Byzantine Emperor encountered a blind man who was...

This icon is a famous and historic symbol of Moscow and its ancient kingdom. In the center is the Theotokos of Vladimir. She is surrounded by a "family tree" filled with saints from the Moscow region. Painted in 1668 by Simon Ushakov. On the left side:...

St. John the Evangelist did not only author a Gospel, but was a much beloved Apostle and minister of Jesus. He and his brother James were both fishermen and both called to Jesus at the same time and place. Jesus also gave him the surname "Boanerges," Son...

The Apostle and Evangelist Luke is the author of one of the Gospels and the Book of Acts. His feast day is celebrated on October 18.

Saint Zacchaeus was a tax collector (publican). His encounter with the Lord is recorded in Luke 19, which resulted in Zacchaeus turning from his greed and following Christ. After the Ascension, he traveled with Saint Peter, becoming one of the Seventy...

An angel is a messenger of God, and a being which has stood before God and praised Him from a time before human comprehension. We cannot fully grasp what an angel's exact nature is, but we can understand an angel's function on earth. In icons,...

This beautiful icon is one of the finest examples of Byzantine goldsmithery, featuring enameled inlays and jewels. Several military saints adorn the outer frame. Originally housed in the Hagia Sophia, this icon was among the treasures taken by...

This icon was painted in Moscow in the 16th century. Also known as "The Church Militant," it depicts the heavenly army in the Book of Revelation, and includes imagery of the Heavenly Jerusalem and the River of Life. The burning city is Babylon the...

The Bosom (or "Embrace") of Abraham is an image that refers to a place comfort within Hades (the common place of the dead) for the righteous departed. This term is used in the Lord's parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man, which has the poor beggar...