MORE THAN YOU PROBABLY WANT TO KNOW

Subject: MORE THAN YOU PROBABLY WANT TO KNOW

From: David
Date: 2020-07-13, 18:59

Today’s icon offers a bit of a review.  It is a common type — the “Not Made by Hands” image
of Jesus — but its inscriptions offer the opportunity for practice, and perhaps a scrap or two
of new information.

(Private Collection)

Let’s begin with the halo inscription.  As you know, the Greek form of the halo inscription
reads Ὁ ѠN — HO ON — meaning “The One Who Is” — a title of God found in Exodus 3:14. 
The letters are read top-left-right, as they usually also are in Bulgarian icons.  Russian icons,
however, commonly change the left letter from Ѡ to Slavic  Ѿ  — pronounced “ot” — which
enables them to read the inscription left-top-right while giving it various fanciful

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interpretations.  Some like the letters to represent the members of the Trinity, interpreting
them as abbreviations for the Three-Hypostatic Godhood, represented in the letters as  Ѿ
(ot) for Ѿтеческий/Otecheskiy — “Of the Father’s”; О for Оум/Oum — “Mind”; and  Н for
Непостижимъ Сыин/Nepostizhim Suin — “Unfathomable Son.”

Still others read it as abbreviating

От небес приидох — Они же Мя не познаша — На кресте распяша
Ot nebes priidokh — Oni zhe mya ne poznasha — Na kreste raspyasha
“From heaven I came — They knew me not — On the cross I was crucified.”

You will of course recognize the common IC  XC  inscription above the halo as abbreviating
Ἰησοῦς Χριστός/Iesous Khristos in Greek for “Jesus Christ,” and in Slavic as Iсус
Христос/Isus Khristos in the earlier and Old Believer form, Iисус (Иисус) Христос/Iisus
Khristos in the post-Nikon Russian State Church form that began to be used in Russia in the
mid-1600s after the great schism.

Now let’s look at the main title inscription at the top:

It reads (missing or very small superscript letters are in brackets):

НЕРУКОТВОРЕННЫЙ ѠБРАЗ Г[ОСПО]ДА НАШЕГѠ IС[УС]А ХР[ИС]ТА
NERUKOTVORENNUIY OBRAZ G[OSPO]DA NASHE[GO] IS[US]A KHR[IS]TA
NOT-HAND-MADE        IMAGE  [of] LORD   OF-US            JESUS   CHRIST
“THE ‘NOT MADE BY HANDS’  IMAGE OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.”

There is an inscription in red near the base of the cloth which, though written very small
here, is nonetheless a very common inscription on icons of this type:

It reads:  С[ВЯ]ТЫЙ ОУБРУСЪ/SVYATUIY OUBRUS, meaning “HOLY CLOTH.”

Below that is a larger inscription in red, which, as we saw in a previous posting on this icon
type, is much less common:

БОЖIЕ ВИДЕНIЕ БОЖЕСТВЕННОЕ ЧЮДО

BOZHIE VIDYENIE BOZHESTVENNOE CHIUDO (CHUDO)

You may recall that former explanation:

Some time ago there was a posting here on Greek abbreviations found on stone crosses, etc. 
Among them was this one:

ΘΘΘΘ

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ΘΕΟΥ ΘΕΑ ΘΕIΟΝ ΘΑΥΜΑ

Theou Thea Theion Thauma
“Vision of God — Divine Wonder”

The base inscription on this Russian icon of the “Not Made by Hands Image” is just the
Church Slavic translation (BOZHIE VIDYENIE BOZHESTVENNOE CHUDO)  of that Greek phrase,
which we could also render as:
“The Vision of God — a Divine Miracle.”

Now we come to the last inscription at the base of the icon.  It is sometimes, but not always,
found with the “Bozhie Vidyenie ...” inscription just mentioned, likely because some painters
used the same podlinnik tradition or models:

ХР[ИС]ТЕ Б[О]ЖЕ ИЖЕ НА ТЯ НАДЕЯИСЯ НЕ ОТЩЕТИТСЯ НИКОГДА ЖЕ

KHRISTE BOZHE IZHE NA TYA NADYEYAISYA NE OTSHCHETITSYA NIKOGDA ZHE

It means loosely, “CHRIST GOD, WHO HOPES IN YOU WILL NEVER HAVE REGRET.”

Perhaps you have noticed that some icons of this type have the cloth alone, while others have
it held by two angels.  These are two different iconographic traditions.  In this particular icon,
though they are too small to see here, each angel has a title inscription.  That at left
identifies the angel as Архангел Михаил/Arkhangel Mikhail — “Archangel Michael; that at
right identifies the angel as Архангел Гавриил/Arkhangel Gavriil — “Archangel Gabriel.”

Now I hope you remember that the saints in the outer border are generally not part of the
icon type, but are chosen to be added by the person ordering the icon.  Usually they are
name saints for members of the family — and sometimes the Guardian Angel or or other
saints favored for particular reasons are added.  In this example they are all favored saints: 
They are Vlasiy and Flor (Blasius and Florus) at left, and Medost and Lavr (Modestus and
Laurus) at right.  Perhaps you recall that all of these saints have to do with the protection and
health of livestock:  Flor and Lavr for horses, and Vlasiy and Medost for cattle, oxen, and
flocks.

So that’s it.  Now you will be able to translate most inscriptions on other icons of this type. 
But be aware that there may be differences in the title inscriptions, as in the following
example, a Nevyansk icon from the Urals region:

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Let’s look more closely at the title inscription.  It is a little longer than the first one because
of the addition of three words:

НЕРУКОТВОРЕННЫЙ ѠБРАЗ Г[ОСПО]ДА БОГА I СПАСА НАШЕГО IСУСА ХРИСТА

NERUKOTVORENNUIY OBRAZ GOSPODA BOGA I SPASA NASHEGO ISUSA KHRISTA

That BOGA I SPASA is the added words “God and Savior” in their grammatical “of” forms.  So
the whole inscription reads:
“‘NOT MADE BY HANDS’ IMAGE OF OUR LORD GOD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST.”

This icon two follows the tradition of depicting two angels holding the cloth, but where the

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first example identified the angels by name as Archangels Michael and Gabriel, this icon
identifies them only as АНГЕЛИ ГОСПОДНИ/ANGЕLI GOSPODNI — “Angels of the Lord.”

This second icon also follows the less common tradition that uses both the “Bozhie vidyenie
…” and “Khriste Bozhe izhe na tya …” inscriptions on this type.

Now, to finish up for today, we need only take a look at the inscription at the base of the
second icon example:

It tells us that the icon was painted in the year

ЗТЛД

Now if  you remember your Cyrillic letters used as numbers (and if you do not, see
https://russianicons.wordpress.com/2017/11/17/what-year-is-it-…on-russian-icons/

— you will know that the letter numbers translate as:

7334 — the year 7334 by the old system of dating.

To put that into modern dating, you will remember that we need these elements:

7334 (the old date on the icon, which is the year after the Russian Orthodox date of creation
— in this case the 7, 334th year after Creation.

5508 (The traditional Russian Orthodox date of the creation of the world, that is 5508 years
before the supposed birth date of Jesus)

So we use this formula:

Old date
minus date of Creation
equals modern date.

Or, to do the math,

7334
– 5508
= 1826

And that is the date of the icon:  the year 1826 by our modern calendar.

The date inscription further tells us that the icon was painted Месаца Генваря/Mesatsa
Genvarya — “in the month of January,” and Въ ГI День/V ГI Den’ — “On the 13th Day.”

And that is your review for today.

Attachments:

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