The Baptism of Christ. in Muscovite Iconography. Tradition and Innovation

Abstract

The Baptism of Christ in its Early Christian representations is rendered with a naked Christ immersed in the waters of the Jordan River with John the Forerunner and attending angels present. In Eastern Christian tradition this representation perseveres until the late 13th century, when a girded Christ appears in images at Mt. Athos and becomes dominant in Balkan iconography. The girded Christ makes its way to Rus, but aside from some rare frescoes in Novgorod actually ascribed to Serbian artists, the girded Christ is apparently limited to Moscow and its environs. This study attempts to account for the emergence of the girded Christ in Orthodox iconography and to account for its singular distribution in Muscovite Rus.