From Petersburg to Shipka via Mount Athos: Slavic Saints on the Shipka Iconostasis

Abstract

The article explores the images of Slavic saints on the iconostasis of the Russian Memorial Church in the town of Shipka in Bulgaria, which were completed in 1899–1901 at the Russian Saint Panteleimon Monastery on Mount Athos. Its main objective is to analyze the iconostasis’s conceptual framework, the meanings behind the selection of the saints, as well as the main iconographical models utilized. The Committee for the Construction of the Memorial Church and its chairperson Count Nikolay Ignatyev conceived of one tier of images of saints depicting the heroes of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, while a number small icons would feature local Bulgarian and Slavic saints that were to be selected by the monks themselves. The icon painting monks mainly relied on Archbishop Philaret of Chernigov’s book The Saints of the Southern Slavs with engravings by academician Fedor Solntsev as the main source and model for their depictions of saints.