Saint Nicholas is portrayed wearing the traditional robes and stole decorated with crosses of an Orthodox bishop. He is shown with his right hand raised in blessing and a closed Gospel in his raised left hand. Around him are twelve scenes depicting miraculous events from his life. The high-domed forehead, short curly beard, small mouth, and large ears give the easily recognisable and distinctive appearance of St Nicholas. He is flanked by the Virgin and Christ because, according to tradition, Nicholas was present at the Council of Nicaea (325) where he attacked the heretic Arius so violently that fellow bishops had to restrain him. Some thought this behaviour was unsuitable but legend recounts that Christ and the Mother of God appeared to Nicholas that night in a dream, endorsing his conduct.

Nicholas the Wonderworker is the most widely revered saint in Orthodoxy. The Russians have a saying 'If anything happens to God, we have always got Saint Nicholas'. According to the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium his cult, which only became popular some five hundred years after his death, gave him a prominence ‘second only to the Virgin’. The writer notes with surprise that ‘a saint who was not martyred for his faith, left no theological writings and was almost unknown before the ninth century’ could achieve such status.[1] The only more or less certain fact in the life of Nicholas is that he was bishop of Myra, a city in the region of Lycia in the south eastern part of the Byzantine Empire – today Turkey – in the 4th century.

This type of icon first becomes popular in the early thirteenth century. There are today less than two dozen Byzantine vita icons in existence. Most seem to come from the fringes of the empire, many from the monastery of Saint Catherine on Mount Sinai.[2] (fig. 1) The panels are relatively large, presumably intended for public display, and are devoted, for the most part, to the vitae of rather well-established saints. Kurt Weitzmann assumed that they were inspired by manuscript originals which depicted saints’ lives.[3]

They were used to initiate veneration of Saints and establish their virtues, as previously mentioned. They tended to follow a pattern of showing the difficulties the saint surmounted, the miracles attached to the saint and the triumphs of the saint. Vita icons generally show what a saint did in life, rather than miracles which occurred after their death, and demonstrate a sort of ‘roadmap’ on how to enter the heavenly kingdom.[4]

[1] Kazhdan ed., The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, 1991, Vol 2, p. 1469

[2] Sotiriou, G. and M. Icones du Mont Sinai,Vol. 1, (Athens: 1956), pp 166-170

[3] Ševčenko, Nancy Patterson. "The "Vita" Icon and the Painter as Hagiographer." Dumbarton Oaks Papers 53 (1999): 149-65. Accessed August 11, 2020. doi:10.2307/1291798. p. 151

[4] Ševčenko, Nancy Patterson. "The "Vita" Icon and the Painter as Hagiographer." Dumbarton Oaks Papers 53 (1999): 149-65. Accessed August 11, 2020. doi:10.2307/1291798. p. 151