Features of the Theotokos Iconography “Cover us with the Shelter of Your Wing” (“The Protecting Veil”) of the Second Half of XVII–XIX centuries in the Eastern European Orthodox Culture

Abstract

The article is devoted to a topical problem – the appearace of new and non-traditional icons of the Theotokos in Russia in the epoch of the Romanovs dynasty. The author of the article raises and studies the question concerning the origin of a new iconography of the Theotokos “Cover us with the shelter of Thy wing” in the end of the XVII-th century. At the turn of XVII–XVIII centuries there is a new iconography of the Theotokos in the Russian culture, which later received the name “The Protecting Veil”. The earliest Russian icon of this iconography is the image of the Theotokos “Cover us with the shelter of Thy wing” of the beginning of XVIII century, made by the master of the Armory chamber, from the collection of the название Museum of Moscow Theological Academy (Church-Archeological Room). The icon-painter of the Kremlin Armoury used an engraving of Ukrainian origin. In the fifth edition of the collection of legends of Holy Dimitry of Rostov “Bedewed fleece” (Chernigov, 1696), an engraved image of the Theotokos “Cover us with the shelter of Thy wing” was published, which are close to the icon of the Museum of Moscow Theological Academy. The almost identical iconographic copies of this engraving are the icon “Cover us with the shelter of Thy wing” of the second half of the XVIII century from the collection of the Historical Museum, the medallion from the collection of the National Museum in Lviv, the miraculous image of the Virgin, painted on the wall in 1700–1711 in the Romanian monastery Govora.