The Three-Hierarch's Cross - Aristocratic Art Jewelleries

Complex carved outline of the product with a keel-like top and quadriphonal (four-leafed) side stamps correlates with the forms of aristocratic works of jewelry art after Mongolian Rus. Cross-shaped blades are perceived as plastic "rhymes" to the basic pictorial motive. The high relief of the "bindings" of icons gives a special decorative effect to the product. The form of the cross echoes with the form of the church prosphora and represents both the symbol of the Cross of the Lord and the reflection of the four parts of the world. The top of the cross is likened to the dome of the church. It takes the image of God the Father, depicted in the form of an old man. The strict frontal arrangement of figures in the lower register by their measured rhythm and plastic repetitions speaks of the uniformity of the righteous, their reverence, that is, the likeness of Christ. The reduced figure of the Crucified Savior gives the opportunity to perceive this image in the eucharistic key.

The plot on the cross

In the central part the Crucifixion of the Savior is depicted. Half-figures of the Archangels Michael and Gabriel finish the side branches of the cross. The faces of the Archangels, bent in sad bewilderment and trembling, resurrect in memory the lines of the liturgical poetry of Great Friday: "When you appeared to Caiaphas, God, you surrendered to Pilate the Judge, Heavenly Powers shook with fear." The lower field is filled with images of three saints: Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostom. The presence of the creators of the Divine Liturgy in the images of the cross is not accidental. Their images introduce the theme of liturgical reality into artwork, which, taking away from everyday life, brings to the Eternity. St. Athanasius the Great wrote that the Cross is a "ladder, according to which the earning of the thought begins above the sensuous and above all bodily representation, and where man by the power of his mind touches the Divine and the mental in the heavens."