Kursk, May 8, 2019
Photo: TASS
Iconographers from the St. Andrei Rublev workshop at Holy Trinity Church in Kursk transferred a newly-painted copy of a 13th-century Syrian icon of the holy Martyrs Sergius and Bacchus to representatives of Rossotrudnichestvo (The Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States, Compatriots Living Abroad and International Humanitarian Cooperation) on Monday.
From there, the icon will be delivered to a monastery in Damascus, Syria that is home to the original icon that was damaged by militants, reports TASS.
Work on the icon began in March, as OrthoChristian previously reported.
For more than 8 centuries, the icon was preserved in one of the most ancient Orthodox monasteries in Syria, in the Church of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus in Maaloula. Sergius and Bacchus were Roman soldiers and secret Christians who embraced martyrdom in the times of persecution. Militants seized the city in 2013 and stole or destroyed the churches icons, including the ancient icon of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus that hung at the entrance to the church. Maaloula was liberated in April 2014 by the Syrian army.
“This is one of the oldest Christian icons; the monastery has a church and services are still held there in the Aramaic language. We will deliver [the icon] to Syria on May 13, and on May 15 it will be festively transferred to the same monastery where it was for 800 years. We are taking it ourselves and will give it to the Church of Sergius and Bacchus,” said Tatiana Poloskova, a member of Rossotrudnichestvo’s expert council for social and humanitarian programs.
The Kursk iconographers painted the new icon based on a photo take of the ancient icon before it was damaged. The original icon was written in the Byzantine-Syrian style.
“There were times when something was altered or refined. I worked alone, and Batiushka helped, for example, to develop the color. We brought something of our own to it while adhering, of course, to the original image,” noted iconographer Stansislav Proskurin.
Kursk iconographers earlier sent an icon of the saints of the Kiev Caves to Syria.
In late March, more than 20 icons created in the Orthodox studio of Sergei Zacharchenko using unique carving techniques were gifted to various churches in Syria, with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia.
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