Sophia in the Womb of the Virgin

Abstract

In the Novgorod Sophia icon, the Theotokos who holds in her hands Christ in an aureole provides a clue to the sophiological meaning of the icon. Two case studies on the sixth- or seventh-century manuscript illuminations in the Syriac Bible of Paris and in the Armenian Echmiadzin Gospels explore the historical roots and meaning of this type of Marian iconography which is usually called Nikopoios. The focal point of this chapter is the eleventh-century Nikopoios fresco in the apse of the Saint Sophia church at Ohrid, the central image of an elaborate church decoration programme conveying an intertwined sophiological-eucharistic-ecclesiological meaning. The Nikopoios, as a symbol of Byzantine imperial Orthodoxy, promotes the doctrine of the hypostatic union of the two, human and divine, natures in Christ who incarnated in the deified human womb of the Mother of God. The iconographical investigations of the ‘Image’ part conclude that the Novgorod Sophia image was created simultaneously with the Sophia commentary in the first half of the fifteenth century in Novgorod and the prototype of this iconography was undoubtedly connected with the Novgorod Sophia Cathedral.