Earlier this week I uploaded a new video in The Lives of the Saints – Second Series. Episode Twenty-three pays tribute to the three Archangels: Gabriel, Michael and Raphael using some of the most strikingly beautiful art work I could find from both the Western and Eastern Church traditions. The episode is among the longest in the series, running around 26 minutes.
One of the images of St. Gabriel (left) is a fresco from the early 14th C. found at the Georgian Orthodox Cathedral Church of the Transfiguration of the Saviour, Tsalenjikha, Republic of Georgia. The artist was Cyrus Emanuel Eugenicus, who was brought to Georgia from the imperial capital of Constantinople by the country’s royal family. The style is described as late Byzantine, representing the beginning of the introduction of Western Church artistic styles into the Byzantine manner. WATCH THE VIDEO LISTEN TO THE PODCAST
But the best, to my untrained but appreciate eye, is an apse mosaic of St. Gabriel, the most famous of the three Archangels, by an unknown group of artists working in the Ohrid bishopric, one noted for the exceptional quality of its frescoes and icons, in what is now the Republic of Macedonia. The location is the little stone Church of St. George, Kurbinovo, Macedonia. I suspect that these traditional Christians could use some outside help in the restoration of the building, which was completed around 1191 A.D. The celestial blues and whites are, pardon the pun, stellar. In the original, St. Gabriel is at the left side of the image. He leans toward the central figure, a seated Blessed Virgin Mary holding the infant Jesus Christ.
I find this picture so intriguing because it shows us the high spirituality found in the Eastern Church tradition of that era, and to a lesser extent today, to fill virtually every inch of a Church building wit with art which is not only beautiful but emotionally and spiritually uplifting. This stands in very sharp contrast to today’s Church buildings which, to my eye, look more like auto showrooms without the auto. The building in which this astonishing work is found is a small stone chapel, not a great cathedral as you might imagine. It is this kind of confident spirituality, representing unwavering faith in the face of adversity as well as prosperity, that the Western Church so badly needs today.
I can also report that The Writing Prophets of the Old Testament, published earlier this year, is now available in Kindle format at $9.99 from my Amazon Author Central page. Those who purchase the print edition can purchase the electronic version for $2.99. For pricing and ordering Kindle Editions and Paperbacks visit Fr. Ron’s Amazon Author page,
As always, thank you for your interest in and support of the Anglican Internet Church’s online ministry.
Episode Twenty-two, also published today, celebrates the life and contributions of one of the greatest of the 16th-17th Anglican divines, the Blessed Lancelot Andrewes, whose Feast Day is September 25th. Andrewes is one of my personal favorites. I suspect that he was one of those rumored to have desired placing the Church of England under the jurisdiction of the Patriarch/Archbishop of Constantinople. The illustration is a memorial window in the Cloister at Chester Cathedral, Chester, England. The picture is public domain through Wikipedia Commons. I applied perspective correction using Photoshop to the original file.
UPDATED VERSION – 08/25/2017
Next week (week of 8/28) I will release Episode Twenty-one in The Lives of the Saints – Second Series. Episode Twenty-one celebrates the life of St. Cyprian of Carthage, whose Feast Day is September 12. The illustration is a detail which I lifted from a 6th C. Byzantine mosaic frieze at the Basilica of St. Apollinare, Ravenna, Italy (image copyright RibieroAntonio/Can Stock Photo, Inc.). In the frieze the martyred saints stand in line to give their crowns to Jesus Christ, who is seated as Christ Pantokrator flanked by angels. In the original, St. Cyprian stands between St. Cornelius, Bishop of Rome when Cyprian was Bishop of Carthage, and St. John Cassian, one of the earliest Western Church chroniclers of the early Church.
Episode Twenty includes four images of the great saint, including the oldest known representation of him, a late 6th C. fresco in a chapel on the lower level of the Lateran Palace, Rome (left, public domain), and Jaime Huguet’s egg tempera on wood panel, The Consecration of St. Augustine, painted for the Spanish monarchy in 1462 A.D. and now in the Catalan National Museum of Art, Barcelona, Spain. Another Huguet painting included in the episode is one of a collection of paintings of famous men in the Louvre Museum, Paris. There is also an illuminated letter from an 13th or 14th C. edition of his The City of God printed in Avignon, France, from a collection in the Episcopal Museum, Vic, Spain. and a color photograph of his tomb in the Basilica San Pietro d’Oro (St. Peter of the Golden Ceiling), Pavia, Italy. I tell the story of his wandering remains and how they ended up in Pavia (twice).
Episode 19 in The Lives of the Saints – Second Series, focused on the life of St. Joseph of Arimathea is now available in both video and podcast versions. Finding a good graphic for St. Joseph was a challenge, since there are so few icons, mosaics or paintings of him. The Byzantine icon, Descent from the Cross (14th C., Agia Marina, Kalapanagiotis, Cyprus shows the scene well. But the most striking is Lamentation Over the Dead Christ, painted in oil on canvas by Pietro Perugino in 1495 A.D. and which is now displayed at the Pitta Palace, Florence, Italy, provides the most famous depiction. From it many have extracted the head of St. Joseph, who kneels at the feet of Jesus.
Another image of Joseph of Arimathea is from the Life of Christ series of sketches in charcoal and watercolor by French artist James Tissot, now in the collection of the Brooklyn Museum, which has made them available in the public domain. In Tissot’s work the subject is much more clearly of Semetic origins (compared to the Europeanized image painted by Perugino and typical of Western Church art).
This week I offer three new videos and one new podcast from the AIC’s digital library.
This coming week I expect to finish the first video produced on our new iMac laptop using the more advanced version of iMovie. It is a short preview with page images for the AIC Bookstore – Spring A.D. 2017 Preview. You’ll see the stylistic differences right away, with new page transitions not available in the iPad version used for all earlier videos. There will be information about all publications, including the pending revised edition of The Prayer Book Psalter. The revised version includes some design changes to type faces and content. Some of these include the first line in Latin for each Psalm and additional focus in the commentaries on how the same issues and verses are addressed in other AIC Publications, including books, videos and podcasts. The publication date depends upon completion of the proof-reading, but I hope it can be finished by early summer.
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