♰A T H O S ♰

PAPER ICONS OF MOUNT ATHOS ENGR AVINGS

from the Collection of the Mount Athos Artarchive

THE HOLY MOUNTAIN

EXHIBITION OF PHOTOGRAPHS AND ENGRAVINGS OF MOUNT ATHOS STATE DUMA OF THE FEDERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION • MOSCOW • 4-11 APRIL 2016 ORGANIZATION

Interparliamentary Assembly of Orthodoxy (I.A.O.) GENERAL OVERSEEING - COORDINATION

Kostas Migdalis ART DIRECTORS

Kostis Antoniadis - Markos Kampanis TEXTS

Evangelos Hekimoglou Above: a) Our Lady ‘The Portaïtissa’ • Engraving: The Monastery of Iviron (detail) • Moscow, November 1838 • Engraver: unknown b) St. Panteleïmon • Engraving: The Monastery of St. Panteleïmon (detail) • Holy Mountain, 15 March 1836 • Engraver: (Monk Theofilos) Below: General View of the Holy Mountain • (Holy Mountain), ca. 1770 • Engraver: unknown

TECHNICAL SUPPORT

Georgios Parissis

EXHIBITION PRODUCTION

MOUNT ATHOS PHOTOARCHIVE

Exhibition of Photographs and Engravings A Tribute from the Interparliamentary Assembly of Orthodoxy to the Millennial Presence of Russian Monks on Mount Athos (1016-2016)

PORTR AITS AND EVENTS OF MOU NT ATHOS PHOTOGR APHS

from the Collection of The Mount Athos Photoarchive

AT H O S T h e H o l y M o u n t a i n

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ejection of the world engenders respect from the world. The Holy Mountain has attracted the respect of the Orthodox and the admiration of the heterodox all over the planet, precisely because it expresses universality so well. Not merely through its unique material and spiritual world, but primarily through the ascetic struggle, prayer and sanctity of the lives of so many monks. The Holy Mountain is not merely the systematic and enduring rejection of the world; it is, at the same time, an affirmation of its complexity and internal variations. The monks do, indeed, come from different countries and speak a variety of languages. But there is also an unexplored -more spiritual than material- mechanism, beyond the boundaries of language and geography, through which the personas of the ascetics of the Holy Mountain become more widely known. This is a mechanism which transmits their renown from the caves, the houses, the sketes and the monasteries to the towns and villages of Christendom, to the souls of the faithful. It is mainly to this factor that the repute of Athos is due, and the desire of many people to visit it or, if this is not possible, to have some depiction of it, something from it, its composition and its sanctity.

Athonite Photography: Depicting Holy Figures and Historical Evidence

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he photographs which follow are divided into two units: the first has to do with people and the second with events. The people form a collection of characteristic Athonite portraiture from the middle of the 19th century until today. They include monks who have been numbered among the saints, abbots, ascetics and other people who were expressions of the monastic life. The second part includes photographs which capture important events in Athonite life, especially visits by leaders of the Orthodox Christian world in the period between 1867 and 1963. Almost all the photographs contained in the exhibition were taken on the Holy Mountain, a good number of them by visitors, professional photographers or scholars, but most of them by local photographic workshops. Most of the latter were operated by monks who combined their religious duties with what was then a new obedience – photography. Their subjects were holy icons, views of monasteries, portraits of monks and visitors, as well as events and the natural environment of Athos, and also codices and manuscripts, and religious ceremonies. A complete set of photographs of the Athonite monasteries was created as early as the 1860s by the atelier in the Monastery of Saint Panteleïmon. Of the monk photographers, we would mention some whose work we know. These are Hieromonk Veniamin Kontrakis, Hierodeacon Prokopios Kareotis, Hieromonk Stefanos Kareotis, Monk Ioasaf Kavsokalyvitis, Monk Daniïl Neoskitiotis, Monk Nifon Hilandarinos, and Monk Makarios Neoskitiotis. We would also mention the photographic workshop at the Monastery of Saint Panteleïmon and those of the Monastery of Zografou, the Skete of Saint Andrew and of the Brotherhood of the Ioasafeï at Kavsokalyvia The monk photographers not only took exceptional photographs; they also developed the glass plates (which were the forerunners of flexible films) and then printed their photographs on paper. The glass plates were a good size and produced stable, sharp and high quality photographs. They were used on the Holy Mountain for a long time, even after flexible film made its appearance. A good number of these glass plates have been located and salvaged on the Holy Mountain. They are well-preserved and can still produce wonderful photographic prints. Apart from these, of course, a large number of photographs on paper have also been found. In contrast to photographic prints of secular people, whose importance wanes on their death and disappears altogether when their memory is forgotten, Athonite photography actually acquires greater value with the passage of time. The prints of the monks who have been canonized, for instance, will become even more prized as time goes on, in the same way as the engraved depictions from the 18th and 19th centuries which form the second part of the exhibition are irreplaceable visual testimony to the past of this holy place. They are presented with all the respect due to Athonite treasures, because, in their own way, these photographs are also very precious. It was the Athos Photoarchive, of the Monastery of Simonopetra, which set the ball rolling for this salvage work, collecting and verifying this forgotten photographic material, which it found in sketes, kelia and in the ateliers of Karyes as well as in collections outside the Holy Mountain. So the monastery has created the most important photographic collection with an Athonite content of anywhere in the world.

Above: Hieromonk Tykhon the Russian (1884-1968) and Saint Païsios the Athonite (1924-1994) Below: Monastery of Vatopaidi. The members of the preparatory committee of the Orthodox Churches (8-23 June 1930)

Athonite Engraving: Location, Monuments, Icons of Saints

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rom the last quarter of the 18th century until the end of the 19th, hundreds of engraving plates were created in the ateliers of the Holy Mountain, from which tens of thousands of images, with mostly Athonite but also other religious subjects, were printed on paper. From as early as the beginning of the 18th century, before the foundation of the Athonite ateliers, monasteries would give orders to the engraving centres of the time, especially in Venice. Research has located at least 50 engravers on the Holy Mountain who worked with copper plates. Over two dozen workshops have also been located, mainly in Karyes, which printed the engravings from the plates created by the Athonite engravers. The enormous difference between Athonite and secular engraving at that time was the powerful presence of the spiritual, non-material world. The role of Athonite engraving was to put the monastery into the everyday life of thousands of ordinary people, living many miles away. The explanatory inscriptions, in two -or even three languages sometimes- in the margins of the icon confirmed their destination and bear witness to the widespread circulation of the engravings. It was this feature of the paper icons which led to them being called ‘the icons of the poor’. Icons painted on wood cost a great deal of money and were beyond the reach of the overwhelming majority of the population, in times and places with a very low standard of living. But a paper icon, since it was reproduced in large numbers from a copper plate, was affordable. At the same time, it linked the monastery directly with the faithful, because it brought them its blessing. In this way, the Holy Mountain acquired a presence in the icon-corners of the Orthodox in Southern and Eastern Europe. The paper icons which monks used to give to pilgrims are important specimens of Orthodox Christian art in the 18th and 19th century. They depict monasteries and sketes, religious scenes and saints. It was the most convenient way at that time to transmit the blessing of the monks to the faithful and also the hope of the faithful to the Holy Mountain, because Athos was always far away and inaccessible, especially before advances were made in the technology of transport. Even today it is not an easy journey. This is why a representative depiction of the Holy Mountain was so precious for the faithful; and how much more so an image that had been made on the Holy Mountain itself. The representative engravings which follow have been divided into a convenient arrangement of two units: a) Landscape and Monuments; b) Holy Icons. The activities of the Athonite workshops were revived by Dora Papastratos, the pioneer in their study and publication, in her monumental work Χάρτινες εικόνες (Paper Icons). With its associates, the Monastery of Simonopetra has continued the scholarly work of Papastratos, while at the same time collecting and preserving an important number of copper plates and printed works. In this way, the most complete collection of Athonite engravings has been collated in the monastery.

Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy (I.A.O.) The I.A.O. is an Interparliamentary organization which was set up on the initiative of the Greek Parliament. Its first conference took place in June 1993, in Ormylia, Halkidiki, where its Members Declaration, the Act of Foundation and its Operating Regulations were all passed. Members of the I.A.O. are Orthodox Christian Members of Parliament from all over the world whose Parliaments are members of the organization. In the context of this year’s celebrations of the completion of 1,000 years of the presence of Russian monks on the Holy Mountain (1016-2016), the Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy has organized the exhibition ‘ATHOS, the Holy Mountain’, which is accompanied by a catalogue of the same name.