THE CULT OF THE MOTHER OF GOD IN RUSSIA AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF ORTHODOX ICONOGRAPHY

Abstract

Byzantine iconography is the primary basis for the formation and development of the Russian tradition of depicting the Akathist to the Holy Virgin. The Akathistic iconography, becoming the visual culmination of Mariological Christianity, embraced the entire sum of symbolic meanings of the image of the Virgin and, due to the special veneration of Our Lady in Russia, received a special meaning in Russian culture. Despite all the perfection of the iconographic types developed in Byzantium, the Theotokos image in iconography could not remain unchanged. The iconography of the Virgin is quite comparable to a similar phenomenon in church poetry, where in the Akathistos, so widespread in Russia, a different combination of epithets and comparisons creates each time a unique verbal image of the Virgin. The Akathist to Our Lady became widespread in Russia in the first half of the XIVth — early XVth centuries. From the functional aspect of "motherhood" a transformation of the perspective "spiritual motherhood in relation to believers" is drawn, since the icons show Our Lady in the role of "the real mother of every believer", "the mother of everything earthly on earth." The transformation of the functional aspect "place in the hierarchy system" determines the angle "leader of the heavenly army" — the Mother of God is shown by the intercessor of the Moscow Kingdom.