The Icon of the Saviour “Not Made By Hands”

Tuesday, 7. September 2010 16:32

We have been preparing to bring Damascene Gallery online for some time, and, from the very beginning, we wanted this entire endeavor to be God-pleasing, so, when choosing when to launch, we looked at the calendar for late August to determine which day would be the “right” day to open our online store. When we saw the feast of the Translation of the Icon “Not Made By Hands” from Edessa to Constantinople in late August (August 16th/29th), we immediately knew that we should coincide our launch with the celebration of this original icon of the Saviour’s Most Holy Visage.

The Prologue of Ochrid says the following concerning this holy image:

“At the time when our Lord preached the Good News and healed every illness and infirmity of men, there lived in the city of Edessa on the shore of the Euphrates Prince Abgar who was completely infected with leprosy. He heard of Christ, the Healer of every pain and disease and sent an artist, Ananias, to Palestine with a letter to Christ in which he begged the Lord to come to Edessa and to cure him of leprosy. In the event that the Lord was unable to come, the prince ordered Ananias to portray His likeness and to bring it to him, believing that this likeness would be able to restore his health. The Lord answered that He was unable to come, for the time of His passion was approaching and so He took a towel, wiped His face and, on the towel, His All-pure face was perfectly pictured. The Lord gave this towel to Ananias with the message that the prince will be healed by it, but not entirely, and later on, He would send him a messenger who would erase the remainder of his disease. Receiving the towel, Prince Abgar kissed it and the leprosy completely fell from his body but a little of it remained on his face. Later, the Apostle Thaddaeus, preaching the Gospel, came to Abgar and secretly healed and baptized him. The prince then destroyed the idols which stood before the gates of the city and above the gates he placed the towel with the likeness of Christ attached to wood, framed in a gold frame and adorned with pearls. Also, the prince wrote beneath the icon on the gates: “O Christ God, no one will be ashamed who hopes in You.” Later, one of Abgar’s great grandsons restored idolatry and the bishop of Edessa came by night and walled up that icon over the gates. Centuries have passed since then. During the reign of Emperor Justinian, the Persian King Chozroes attacked Edessa and the city was in great hardship. It happened that Eulabius, the Bishop of Edessa, had a vision of the All-Holy Theotokos who revealed to him the mystery of the sealed wall and the forgotten icon. The icon was discovered and, by its power, the Persian army was defeated. (Prologue of Ochrid, August 16th/29th).”

The icon “Not Made By Hands” shown above is a very early Russian example of this Holy Icon painted in Kiev in the 12th century and kept today in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. In style and iconographic approach, this icon has many similarities to the very famous “Golden Haired Angel” also painted in Kiev at around the same time.

Both of these Holy Images feature very detailed portrayals of the faces, which are gazing in serenity and other-worldliness. Gold highlights are also present in both icons, which was unique to this period of Kievan icon painting.

While we sometimes refer to the Icon “Not Made By Hands” as the “first icon”, this is not entirely accurate. We know from Theology that, in actuality, it is Christ Himself Who is the first Icon, being the “Image (Icon) of the Invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), but the image “Not Made By Hands” is the first icon in the sense of what we commonly refer to as “icons” today: physical portrayals of Christ and His Saints. It is precisely the Incarnation of Christ, the “Image of the Invisible God”, that resulted in the ending of the prohibition against creating “Images”… in the period of the Old Testament, it was impossible to make an image of God, Who was without image, but, through Christ’s Incarnation, God made an image of Himself. By extension, this is the also the case in Orthodox iconography, in which divine things are “incarnated” through the physical medium of wood and paint, in a process sanctified by the prayerful work of icon painters.

At Damascene Gallery, we are honored to be able to provide such images to the faithful and pray that our work, begun in earnest on the feast of the Icon “Not Made By Hands”, will assist us all who are in search of our heavenly homeland.

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