Inscription on border of icon in Slavonic: Свя(той) ева(нгелист) Матфей - The Holy Evangelist Matthew.

Feast Day: 16th November

The authors of the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John have a special status in the Orthodox Church as the agents of the appearance of the Word (Logos) among human beings. In the programme of fresco paintings in Byzantine churches they are placed high up in the pendentives (the four triangular vaults where the circular base of the dome meets the square walls of the main structure). They are also found placed below the Annunciation, on the Royal Doors that lead through the Iconostasis to the altar. The symbolic animals associated with the evangelists come from Ezekiel 1:10. In the Russian tradition St. Matthew has as his symbol an angel, St. Mark an eagle, St. Luke an ox and St. John a lion. However, the established relationship between evangelist and symbol varies throughout the centuries. Prof. Felix Just, S.J. of Loyola Marymount University, USA, has compiled material from St. Irenaeus of Lyons, St. Augustine of Hippo, Pseudo-Athanasius, and St. Jerome, all writers and theologians of the 4th century, each of whom variously ascribes the angel, eagle, ox and lion, to a different evangelist.

This is a very good example of the 19th century revival style. This renewal paralleled the translation of the Greek mystical writings of the Desert Fathers and the profound spiritual revival of the Hesychast prayer tradition of Mount Athos.

Some three hundred kilometres west of Moscow are the towns of Mstera, Kholuy and Palekh. Famous throughout Russia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries these communities were devoted entirely to the production of icons and later, during the Soviet period, they painted lacquer boxes illustrating fairy tales. Many of the workshops were run by Old Believers, a schismatic sect within the Orthodox Church who resisted the westernisation of their art.