Object ID
2007.30.2
Object Name
Icon
Material
Metal; Paper; Wood
Object Entities
Barbara, Saint (is related to)
Schemetekopf, Angela (is related to)
Object Description
Framed icon of St. Barbara shown holding a chalice in one hand and palm fronds and a cross in her left arm. On her head rests a mural crown (a crown or headpiece representing city walls or towers. In classical antiquity, it was an emblem of tutelary deities who watched over a city and among the Romans a military decoration. Later the mural crown developed into a symbol of European heraldry.) Font reads St. Barbara in modern Greek.

Brass frame glued to the plywood.
Origin
Saint Barbara, Feast Day December 4, known in the Eastern Orthodox Church as the Great Martyr Barbara, was an early Christian saint and martyr. Accounts place her in the 3rd century. Her name can be traced to the 7th century, and veneration of her was common, especially in the East, from the 9th century. Because of doubts about the historicity of her legend, she was removed from the liturgical calendar of the Roman rite in 1969 in Pope Paul VI's motu proprio Mysterii Paschalis.

As one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, Barbara continues to be a popular saint in modern times, perhaps best known as the patron saint of artillerymen, military engineers, miners and others who work with explosives because of her old legend's association with lightning, and also of mathematicians. Many of the thirteen miracles in a 15th-century French version of her story turn on the security she offered that her devotees would not die without making confession and receiving extreme unction.

Her crown markers her as a protector of a region, city or province.

Since this icon was found in a set of three with a kandili, it might have been used in the family's icon corner.
Rights and Reproduction
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Citation
Icon, National Hellenic Museum, https://collections.nationalhellenicmuseum.org/Detail/objects/7716. Accessed 04/19/24.