The tortured and mutilated bodies of seven virgin martyrs stand side by side in an antependium woven around 1430 in Nuremberg. The Virgin Martyrs Tapestry is a striking representation of female saints’ martyrdoms that has yet to be fully analyzed for its potential contributions to discourses about hagiographic iconography, suffering and pain, religious constructs of gender, and sexualized violence in the fifteenth century. Nuanced interpretations of the iconography, with reference to images of Christ, enlighten and recontextualize the tapestry’s brutal depiction of the virgin martyrs. My analysis of the tapestry engages with this unusual presentation of virgin martyrs, stripped and statically accepting brutal torture that far exceeds their textual legends by weapons wielded by disembodied hands, as avenues for imitatio Christi. This interpretation considers the tapestry’s visual program, its enigmatic portrayal of torturing hands, late medieval attitudes toward pain and suffering, and the phenomenon of Christian women “becoming male” to transcend their femininity. Theologically and iconographically, the martyrs’ portrayals in the tapestry mirror the human and divine aspects of Christ.

This paper examines Christian icons in Panjab, in northern India, and their relationship to the larger discourse on race, iconoclasm, and decentering Whiteness in the United States. I analyze the appropriation of Panjabi idioms woven into Christian icons to interrogate the alleged case of forced conversions of lower caste, Mazhabi Sikhs, and the atmospheres of violence. Focusing on the beheading of Christ and Mary’s pieta statue in a church in Tarn Taran, Panjab in 2022, I investigate the iconic materiality and vexed histories of the religious symbol through a visual studies lens. How do Christian images signal liminal material presences that oscillate between their identity of sacred icons and of hegemonic monuments of white supremacy? Using a Lacanian psychoanalytic and decolonial framework, I argue that entangled in the politics of memory, Christian icons are an impregnated space of intersecting colonial histories of oppression and conversion entrenched in hierarchies of race, class, and caste. This study contributes to understanding the growing impact of Christianity in northern India, the war of narratives being enacted upon its icons, and its relationship to anti-colonial and anti-racial expressions of transnational iconoclasm to posit a bigger question: Is there a way to navigate through the dense matrix of colonialism, race, religion, caste, and violence to reclaim agency through Mignolo’s call for a “praxis of decolonial healing”?

Christian images and their Jewish desecrators. The history of an allegation, 400–1700. By Katherine Aron-Beller. (Jewish Culture and Contexts.) Pp. xii + 426 incl. 28 ills. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2024. £72. 978 1 5128 2410 0 - Volume 77 Issue 1

The article analyzes the images of bishops in the works by A. P. Chekhov and Hieromonk Tikhon (Barsukov). In Chekhov’s short story, the bishop is both the successor of the apostles and the image of Christ. The four-part structure of the story is determined by the four Gospels, and the last days of the hero’s life fall on Holy Week and are consonant with the last days of the earthly life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Chekhov endows his hero with such key characteristics as fortitude, love for his mother and native land, multigenerational connection with the Church, and humility. At the same time, despite sympathy for the bishop himself, for the author, looking at the bishop’s ministry “from outside” the Church, its severity exceeds its beauty. The view “from within” is presented in the story by Hieromonk Tikhon (Barsukov). The author’s vision of the bishop in it is determined by the patristic tradition and can be described by the formula “Where the bishop is, there is the Church, and there is no Church without the bishop”. He is characterized by a beautiful appearance, the royalty of service is combined in him with monastic humility. The bishop’s ministry in the author’s view is threefold: the bishop combines the functions of a father, a teacher, and a doctor. Despite the difference in approaches and views, both authors present a collective image of a bishop – the successor of the apostles, distinguished by wisdom and humility.

The article addresses the question of how the figure of Christ was presented in the preaching of this fourteenth-century Dominican. The study not only offers an interpretation of the salvific events from the life of Jesus but also provides a characterization of the Christology developed by the Dominican preacher. Particular attention is given to his use of sources — the Bible, the Fathers of the Church, and the liturgy — as well as to his knowledge of the world in interpreting the data of Revelation. The image of Christ is examined from a homiletic perspective, in the context of the distinctive features of Peregrine’s preaching. The findings of the analysis contribute to our understanding of theology and the history of preaching in Poland at the turn of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

The article is dedicated to a practically unknown subject — the so called Alexandrinian Mandylion, the message about which is contained in the Chronicle of John of Nikiou (†700). For the first time, the translation from Ge’ez of the fragment about Alexandrinian Mandylion is introduced in the scholarly life, and its whole analysis is made in the context of stories about acheiropoieta (non hand-made) icons — Edessa image, Camuleana icon, the Roman image, the Memphis icon, the Shroud of Turin. The story about the Alexandrinian Mandylion has a number of common points with tales about other non-hand made icons. The stories, dedicated to non-hand-made images are, to our opinion, not translation of literary common places, but witnesses of vivid faith of the Church in relics, connected with Christ and of the miracles, coming from them, which have a similar, but independent from each other character. These holy relics not only heated the faith of the Christian people, but they helped to form the sober dogmatic mentality, especially the idea about reality of Incarnation of Christ, about possibility to describe and conceive Him. At the turn of the VI–VII centuries a peculiar iconographic “revolution” takes place. The Church gives up images of Christ as Emmanuel, the Good Shepherd, and Christ the Philosopher and comes to the traditional historical image of Christ. The scholars justly see here the influence of Edessa non-hand-made image of Christ. But the situation was possibly even more complicated and other non-hand-made images of Christ, such as Turin Shroud and Alexandrinian Mandylion could influence the formation of traditional iconography of “historic” Christ. We deal with a whole spiritual movement, which identified itself with Apostolic epoch and with Christ Himself, His earthly Life, Passion, Death and Resurrection.

Today, images of Christ are used in visual media to create new meanings. This article aims to determine the relationship between the sacred and the profane as reflected in the images of Jesus on the front covers of popular magazines. In 2023, a study of around 12,000 magazine covers from 2001 to 2023 was conducted, focusing on 80 of the most popular periodical publications globally. Forty-two covers were found to include visual references to Jesus Christ and were examined using the social semiotic approach and rhetorical discourse analysis. The research confirmed that the publishing industry follows a relatively consistent policy of exploiting the image of Jesus. It can be concluded that sacral elements in the studied images tended to dominate over secular aspects. Also, the analysis confirmed that the cover images of Jesus reflect current historical, religious, and cultural contexts and accommodate the diversity of viewpoints.

The Christian Holy Land is defined by and through representation. Images of Christ’s life, death and resurrection draw on scriptural details to set sacred events in a Palestinian landscape. A desire to witness locations marked by divine presence propels Christian travellers towards monuments built to enshrine the terrestrial traces of the faith’s central mysteries. Shortly after the fourth-century construction of Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea declared that the sight of Christ’s empty tomb in the structure testified to the truth of the Gospels ‘by facts louder than any voice’. 1 Textual descriptions, visual depictions and monumental designs soon began to reference the church’s characteristic architectural features. This intentional layering of structure and Scripture enabled readers, viewers and users to activate these associations from afar.

Romeo Castellucci is a renowned director, set designer, and playwright from Italy, considered one of the most influential and innovative artists in the field of contemporary theater. He is known for pushing the boundaries of contemporary theater and creating thought-provoking works that challenge audiences to engage with complex and uncomfortable themes. His exploration of disgust as an aesthetic category is just one example of his innovative and influential approach to theater. The work Sul concetto di volto nel Figlio di Dio is known for its impact on the spectator’s experience. In this play, Castellucci portrays life in its raw and extreme form, which can evoke strong feelings of anxiety and disgust in the audience. The play represents the physiological aspects of humanity that are often considered unpleasant or repulsive. It challenges traditional notions of elevation and salvation by juxtaposing the image of Christ’s face with the portrayal of bodily functions, like the loss of control over bowel movements in an elderly person. This contrasting imagery of Christ’s distant and hieratic face being struck by the same fecal substance can be seen as a metaphorical statement about the vulnerability of the human condition, despite any perceived divinity or elevated status.

This article examines the “Alminhas” of the municipality of Sabugal in the Beira Alta region (Portugal) as expressions of popular religiosity and cultural heritage. The main goal of the study is to survey and analyse the iconography of tile panels found in 27 preserved oratories within the area. A qualitative methodology was employed, involving bibliographic research and fieldwork conducted across the 30 parishes of the municipality. This fieldwork involved taking photographs, georeferencing sites and collecting local testimonies. The research revealed that Christian themes, primarily focused on saving souls in purgatory, are prevalent, particularly images of Christ crucified, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and angels interceding for the souls in flames. There are also newer devotional motifs, such as Our Lady of Fátima. The findings emphasise the importance of these structures as symbols of local identity and evidence of deep-rooted religious customs, although they are currently threatened by deterioration, vandalism and undocumented changes. This work helps to recognise the “Alminhas” as an essential part of Portuguese religious and popular artistic heritage.

This article provides a comparative analysis of apocalyptic motifs in A.A. Blok's poem “The Twelve” and M.A. Bulgakov's novel “The White Guard”. The research focuses on eschatological imagery as a key tool for artistic interpretation of the revolution and the Civil War. The relevance of the work is determined by the need for a systematic study of the understanding of biblical texts in the Russian literature of the transitional era. The paper proves that, despite the commonality of the subject, the authors demonstrate fundamentally different strategies for representing the historical cataclysm. Blok's poem is interpreted as the embodiment of the idea of an irreversible end, where the symbols of world conflagration and demonic blizzard become central, and the ambivalent image of Christ in the finale emphasizes the paradoxical combination of hope for transformation and awareness of the destructive nature of revolutionary chaos. In contrast, Bulgakov's novel is viewed through the prism of a cyclical model of history, where the apocalypse is understood as a stage of necessary destruction leading to rebirth. The article pays special attention to the analysis of the dream system, which performs a prophetic function and is saturated with apocalyptic symbols, as well as the transformation of the City space under the influence of demonic forces. The methodological basis is based on comparative historical and structural-semantic approaches, which make it possible to identify the specifics of the artistic embodiment of eschatological and apocalyptic themes. The structural and semantic analysis reveals the symbolism of key images and scenes. The comparative approach allows us to identify two different ways of artistic reflection: Blok's model of the impetuous end is contrasted with Bulgakov's concept of the apocalypse as a tragic but necessary transformation, reflecting the diversity of creative responses to the historical upheavals of the early 20th century.

This article deals with books pointing to Christian influence in the Viking Age town of Birka. Three aspects are emphasized: written sources, finds of parts of books and related objects, and illustrations as models for handicraft. Special attention is paid to technical details. It begins with mentions of books connected with missionaries. The information derives from documents by Rimbert and Adam of Bremen. Connected with books are some book mounts turned into pendants, found in graves, that are proofs of magic or Christian influence. Of major importance is the well-known “Birka crucifix”, where the image of Christ is covered with tiny silver grains and no cross is visible. The author is convinced that illustrations in a work by Hrabanus Maurus, De laudibus sanctae crucis, have been model for the design of the crucifix. Also a number of miniature shields and cross pendants could be traced to this publication. Some of them even appear to have been made with the same tool. Other pendants, such as a tiny reliquary, as well as serpents and miniature chairs, with obvious Christian background, are discussed.

Christian leadership can be understood as leadership rooted in the truth of God’s Word and exemplified through the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. In the Gospel narratives, Jesus consistently displayed leadership qualities that were grounded in service, sacrifice, humility, and the nurturing of His disciples. However, in today’s context, many church environments face a crisis of leadership characterized by corruption, arrogance, lack of integrity, and resistance to constructive criticism, all of which deviate from the biblical image of Christ as the Good Shepherd. This study aims to explore the biblical foundation of Jesus Christ’s leadership, focusing on both its character and technical dimensions as reflected in the Gospel of John, and to examine its implementation in the local ministry setting of GPdI Bethesda Kabanjahe. The research employs a qualitative method with two primary dimensions: a theological-biblical approach and a case study approach. The findings reveal that, first, the pastoral leadership model in the Gospel of John presents Jesus as the Good Shepherd who builds intimate relationships, willingly sacrifices, and develops the character of His followers. While these values are normatively acknowledged by church ministers, their implementation in GPdI Bethesda remains partial, fragmented, and not yet systematically embedded into the overall ministry structure. Second, theological reflection and practical implications highlight the urgent need for renewal that encompasses both organizational systems and the personal spiritual formation of leaders. Recommendations emerging from this study include leadership training grounded in Christlike character, developing an organizational structure that ensures regeneration, cultivating a healthy spiritual community, and contextually internalizing Gospel values into ministry practices. Strengthening these areas is essential for building authentic, sustainable, and Christ-centered leadership that responds to contemporary challenges and restores the church’s witness to the surrounding community.

The moral crisis and rampant corruption among Christian leaders pose serious challenges that erode the credibility and integrity of religious institutions. This phenomenon not only tarnishes the image of Christianity institutionally but also weakens the foundation of ethics and spiritual values that should guide the lives of the congregation. This issue becomes even more pressing when it occurs in the realm of Christian education, a place where future leaders should be formed. This study aims to analyze Jonathan Lamb's concept of integrity as a strategic framework for addressing this crisis, especially in the context of Christian educational institutions. Using a qualitative approach and literature review, this study highlights Lamb's holistic view of integrity, which encompasses three main dimensions: wholeness of the person (wholeness), consistency between beliefs and actions (consistency), and full accountability to God (accountability to God). Lamb's concept of integrity is highly relevant amidst the increasing need for leaders who are not only competent but also possess proven character. The findings of this study indicate that to effectively implement the concept of integrity, Christian educational institutions need to take a two-pronged approach: first, comprehensively reform the curriculum so that integrity values are not only a separate subject, but are integrated into all disciplines and learning activities; Second, building an institutional culture that emphasizes moral exemplarity from leaders, lecturers, and educational staff. Furthermore, a sustainable character development system, transparent accountability evaluation, and open ethical discussion are needed. Education is not only about knowledge transfer, but also about character transformation. Therefore, integrity must be seen as the core of Christian education, not an add-on. This study concludes that Lamb's concept of integrity can be a transformative model that encourages the formation of future leaders with strong character, prevents moral failure, and restores public trust in Christian institutions

The article examines the problem of Dziga Vertov’s self-identification as an avant-garde artist, analyzed in terms of the “religiosity” of his programmatic journalistic texts. Based on the material of the kinok manifestos “We” and “Kinoki. The Revolution”, as well as some of Vertov’s poetic works, reveals the avantgarde's characteristic desire to present the world in the categories and images of Christianity, defines Vertov's revolutionary interpretation ofsuch concepts as Eden, Epiphany, the all-seeing Eye, the Holy Trinity, etc. As a result of the analysis of the texts, conclusions are drawn about the radical differences between Vertov’s theocratic cosmogony and the biblical-evangelical one, and the evolution of the relationship between the artist and the “communist religion” is traced.

The image of Christ’s robe, seen through the orb held by Christ in the painting Salvator Mundi by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, has led to speculation that the orb consists of a glass (or rock crystal, calcite) sphere that is either hollow or solid. Da Vinci’s drawings and notes indicate that he had an intense interest in the optics of the eye and in the natural world around him. Is it possible that he was depicting the optical quality of the spherical fish lens, a lens with a gradient refractive index that neutralizes the spherical aberration that would otherwise exist?

No abstract is available.

The purpose of this study is to highlight the current situation and the challenges faced by religious members in living out the vow of poverty. Through this, religious individuals can develop a more accurate understanding of the Vow of Poverty and remain vigilant against the secularization of the world, which has increasingly infiltrated consecrated life. Living in the true spirit of Gospel poverty means reflecting the image of Christ on earth—accepting self-denial to become His disciple, drawing clear boundaries with regard to money, and avoiding the pursuit of comfort and indulgence in religious life. Living in poverty does not merely mean owning fewer possessions, spending minimally, or using outdated technology. More deeply, it means possessing a poor spirit, living simply, joyfully receiving all things as blessings, and fostering humility in one’s relationships with others—so as to be materially poor, yet rich in virtue.

Research findings in cognitive and affective neuroscience, along with psychology and anthropology, can be used to explore the theatrical benefits and dangers of church/temple performances. They involve animal-human drives as primary and social emotions, expressed through patriarchal, maternal, memorial, and supportive/trickster networks in the brain’s staging of self and Other consciousness. Thus, “inner/outer theatre” (brain and social) networks are reflected in the apparent spirits and divine figures of earlier cultures, which relate to Christian images and performance ideals.

The purpose of the article is to consider common features of the painting decorations of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra’s churches in 1890s – 1910s. The research methodology consists in the complex applying to historical and cultural analysis, art study and diachronic one, empirical observation. The scientific novelty of the study. Based on little-known records, visual sources including introduced into scientific circulation, the author identified and analysed the common features of the painting decoration of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra’s churches in 1890s – 1910s. She considered the common image, compositional, iconographic features of the murals of churches such as the Great Church (Dormition Cathedral), Holy Trinity Gate Church, Church of Venerable Anthony and Theodosius of Pechersk with the Refectory Chamber (Refectory Church), Church of All Saints, Church of Conception by St. Ann, Church of Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos. She observed the direct and indirect influence of the Great Church decoration on the formation of painting decorations in these churches. The author also studied the emulation of the Dormition Cathedral compositions of the 18th century in the Church of Conception by St. Ann decoration and clarified the dating of mural paintings of this church at the late 19th century (1895). Conclusions. 1890s – 1910s were the period of creation new mural paintings in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra’s churches defined by specific features. Painting decorations in different churches were specifying by image, compositional and iconographic similarity. As with images of the Venerable Fathers of Pechersk, these were images of Christ in the upper case of painting decorations according to the Byzantine canon instead of New Testament Trinity. The academic murals of the Lavra’s Great Dormition Church had been emulated, and the mural painting compositions of St. Volodymyr’s Cathedral in Kyiv (V. Vasnietsov) had been cited. The artists could follow the academic tradition (V. Sonin) or originally present images in Art Nouveau style (I. Yizhakevych, V. Shurshykov) preserving the iconography of V. P. Vereshchahin’s compositions. The similarity of panting decorations of the churches (Church of Conception by St. Ann and Church of Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos) also had been realised repeating the plot and topical lines of the Great Church murals. According to archival information, the author concluded that mural paintings in the Church of Conception by St. Ann had been performed in 1895.