Icon Introduction to the Church of the Most Holy Theotokos

Icon Introduction to the Church of the Most Holy Theotokos

Russia. XIX century

Levkas, tempera, gilding on wood

Size: 31,5 x 26 cm

Introduction to the Church of the Most Holy Theotokos — a Christian holiday that the parents of the Holy Theotokos Joachim and the saint Anna, fulfilling a vow to dedicate her child Thank God, at the age of three, they brought their daughter Maria in The Jerusalem temple, where she was introduced by the high priest (according to legend, Zacharias) into the Holy of Holies. The Virgin Mary lived at the temple until the age of 12 — before her betrothal to the righteous Joseph the Betrothed. The event is not mentioned in the canonical Gospels and is known from later apocrypha.

The center of the icon's composition is the figure of Mary, which is depicted much smaller than the other figures, but she is dressed in the maforium, which is the traditional clothing of married women. Next to Mary, her parents are depicted, who brought her to the temple. Behind it is a picture of the procession of the virgins who accompanied Mary on the road from Nazareth to Jerusalem. In the temple, symbolically depicted as a ciborium, the Virgin Mary is met by the priest Zacharias.