Translated material
Two exhibitions in St. Petersburg
Natalia Shkurenok
Hermitage, St. PetersburgArchive "Art Diary"
Hermitage, St. Petersburg
Sinai. Byzantium. Russia . Orthodox art from the 6th to the beginning of the 20th century
Treasures of the Armenian Church from the collection of Holy Etchmiadzin
Cadilo, 18th century (Vagarshapat) Echmiadzin.
Icon "Burning Bush", 13th century. Sinai, St. Catherine's Monastery
Amazingly, in the small room of the Church of the Winter Palace, the organizers of the exhibition “Sinai. Byzantium. Rus'” managed to place almost 500 exhibits. In each showcase there is a mass of rare, sometimes miniature objects - so many that it is sometimes difficult to examine them. And the catalog in Russian, published by the international St. Catherine's Foundation in London, will not go on sale.
The small church is literally filled with treasures - items made of silver, gold, ivory, precious stones, ancient Russian parchment manuscripts with miniatures by masters of Byzantium, Georgia, and Russia are collected here, as if in the chest of a stingy knight. Among them there are unique items that have never been exhibited before, for example, the Hermitage collection of ancient Russian facial embroidery. But the most important exhibit is, of course, 10 icons from the basilica and icon depository of the Monastery of St. Catherine in Sinai (X - XIII centuries), 9 of them are leaving the Sinai region for the first time. All items provided by the monastery are still used in worship. The monastery was founded in the middle of the 6th century by the Roman Emperor Justinian and remained intact: it was patronized by Arab caliphs and Turkish sultans, and was not touched by Napoleon’s troops. Only here unique icons of the 5th - 7th centuries and Syrupalestine icons of the 8th - 9th centuries have been preserved (truly unique - after all, the iconoclastic movement was raging in Byzantium in that era). Icons from the Crusades are also collected here.
The other exhibition, “Treasures of the Armenian Church,” has much fewer exhibits. Here you can see reliquaries, that is, containers for relics, of various shapes - folding triptychs, crosses, etc. There are no relics among the exhibits. But there is an agreement between the Hermitage and the Armenian Church in St. Petersburg that at the end of the exhibition, relics from the most famous reliquary - Skevrsky (Cilicia) - will be transferred to it.
July 4, 2000