'Calendar icons are fascinating objects,' according to icon expert Liesbeth van Es. Minutely painted, they show large groups of saints and holidays, arranged by month or year. A sort of birthday calendar, they are often on a lectern in a church. This way, everyone can see which saint is being celebrated on that day. The Icon Museum in Kampen recently launched an exhibition on these special and practical icons: Het Jaar Rond (A calendar year). Only once before in Europe has there been an exhibition around calendar icons.
A major eye-catcher in the exhibition is the annual icon. Such a year icon is a rarity simply because of the enormous skill and time it takes to paint it. It features hundreds of figures, often several saints in one day. In the centre you can see the iconography of Easter, the Anastasis (resurrection). Around this, the panel is divided into 12 equal planes, one for each month. In the outer edge are quite a few images of the Mother of Jesus. These are the miracle icons, each of which also has its own feast day in the church year. The first month on a year icon is always September, the start of the church year. The iconography associated with this day is based on the story from Luke 4, in which Jesus teaches a group of men in the temple by reading from the Bible book Isaiah. However small it is on the month and year icons, the iconography is always easily recognisable: Christ stands or sits amid a group of men, the temple is depicted as a chapel or veil, and there is often a priest, recognisable by the priestly hood.
The Saints
Calendar icons are characterised by rows of saints. However, who exactly are these saints? According to our current, Western notions, saints are often seen as perfect people who have never committed a sin in their lives. This is a misconception: they were indeed flesh-and-blood people, with all their temptations and shortcomings. Yet at some point something changed their lives and made them decide to devote their further time to God and all that Christianity required of them. A famous example is Paul, who first persecuted Christians as a Roman soldier, but after a vision became one of the foremost followers of Christ.
Innocent children
Another example of moving a holiday is the remembrance of the death of innocent children. The icon shows all the stories surrounding Christmas. In the upper part, these are mainly the festive events surrounding the worship of the shepherds and the wise men. The lower part of the icon, however, is far from festive. There, the infanticide by Herod's soldiers is shown. The source of this iconography is Matthew's gospel. The wise men (magi) following the star to meet the Messiah come to Herod to ask for directions. Herod smells danger and tells them to come back when they have found the child. In a dream, the wise men are warned. Joseph also receives a dream: he, Mary and the child Jesus flee to Egypt. Herod has all the little boys under the age of two killed. In the West, this event is commemorated on 28 December. In Eastern Orthodoxy, it is on 29 December. The day was moved by Tsarina Catherine II, as 28 December was the birthday of her son Paul.
Read the complete article (Dutch) on the Platform Oosters Christendom
