Another Volyn icon of Our Lady has been returned to people

These icons waited for a very long time to be restored, but if not for His Grace Nifont’s actions while he was a young hieromonk parish priest in Rudka-Kozynska, we could have lost them altogether. Early in her career, the current head of the Museum of Volyn Icon Tetiana Yelisieieva participated in the first research expeditions which amid the anti-Christian repression entered closed churches of Volyn to list and save by taking to the local history museum thousands of icons which were not just holy images, but quite often, artistic masterpieces, too. These discoveries went on to become the basis of the ongoing rich exhibition at the Museum of Volyn Icon. The four icons from Rudka-Kozynska, recently returned after the year-long restoration at the Lviv Branch of the National Research and Restoration Center of Ukraine, are almost 300 years old, too, as experts date them to the late 18th century.

The individual painting style of the provincial artist strikes every viewer by its originality, saturated bright colors, rich gold and silver inlays, and most of all, the gentle and good-natured faces of the saints and joy of the future resurrection they firmly believe in. Having been partly destroyed by time and people, the icons were abandoned in the attic of an old church, and the bishop recalls how his heart ached when he saw them decayed and knew that he was no painter or restorer. That is why he donated them to the museum relying on God’s will and providence to make good use of them, despite absence of icons in its exhibition and no prospects for a museum of icon at the time.

To date, the Museum of Volyn Icon has obtained two more icons from the Holy Trinity Church in Rudka-Kozynska. They are Prayer, already on display, and Immortal Flower which is now being restored by Anatolii Kvasiuk. Both holy images belong to the Kyivan school and tradition of icon painting, while the four separately exhibited paintings represent pure Volyn school. They are very original and clearly painted by an ardent believer, so the museum’s researchers are going to investigate whether they are the only preserved works of this master. The icons Christ Pantocrator, Our Lady Hodegetria, Saint Nicholas and New Testament Trinity were probably all painted to order for the rural Holy Trinity Church, which was built in 1786, corresponding to the probable date of the icons themselves. Thus, the holy images which the future bishop had saved, the museum has preserved and is now exhibiting for all to see, are opening another unknown page in the history of Volyn icon painting.