OUR LADY HODEGETRIA AND ST GEORGE

The image of Our Lady Hodegetria is painted on the obverse of a huge double-sided icon created at the turn of the 11th-12th centuries, brought to Moscow from Novgorod under Ivan the Terrible. The image of St George is presented on its reverse. This icon had been a part of the Local tier of the iconostasis since the 16th century. Now it is placed in a kiot (icon-case) by the northern door of the cathedral. Only small fragments of the original painting on the neck and arm of the Child has been preserved. Most of the icon was overpainted by a Greek artist in the first third of the 14th century. Fragments of paintings ranging from the 13th to the 19th century were also found when uncovering the icon in 1995. Preserving the composition of the ancient work of art, its majesty and solidity of forms, the 14th-century iconpainter somewhat softened the pictorial interpretation of the images of the Virgin and Child, lending them a more personal and lyrical character. 

On the contrary, the image of St George wearing a suit of armour and holding a sword and a spear in his hands is full of courage and power. He is presented here as the ideal patron of the Christian faith and homeland. It is not without reason that St George was considered the patron saint of many Russian princes — from Yaroslav the Wise, who was baptized as George. The unusual beauty of the saint's countenance and his wide-open eyes seem to radiate the light of unshakable faith, for the sake of which he endured cruel torture and death. That is also reminded by the gesture of his left hand, clutching the cross-shaped hilt of the sword taken from his belt, raised like a martyr's cross. The ancient painting has been well preserved as for a long time it was concealed by a solid dark-brown paint — it was discovered and revealed only in the 1930s.