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“Saviour in Powers”: Facts and metafacts, criticism and hypotheses
https://doi.org/10.28995/2073-6355-2018-8-47-75
Abstract
The article gives a brief overview and an analysis of the main existing in the literature views about the origin and content of the “Savior in Powers” which is one of the most mysterious Russian iconography. Having appeared about half a thousand years ago, it has still not been deciphered and causes a variety of interpretations.
There are results of testing a hypothesis saying that the text of the first Chapter of the book of Ezekiel and a commentary on it by the Pope Gregory the Great (the Dialogos) were the main sources of the iconography. An issue of the time of introducing the readings from the first Chapter of Ezekiel into Russian Divine service and thus causing the possibility of their impact on the iconography emerging is defined. There also are results of analysis of hypothesis that the text of the Liturgy was the source of the iconography, as well as of the Russian full-length Deesis tier composition which included the icon of the Saviour in Powers. The article consideres two assumptions known in the literature about the iconography name; their authors offered to consider it to be based on the words of Psalms 23 or 150. Finally, the article presents cases of using by Russian textual sources of the epithet “in Powers” in relation to various icon images in Russian textual sources and offers a new approach to the iconography of the Savior in Powers and its sources.
About the Author
Denis V. KhlebnikovRussian Federation
bld. 13, Krutitskaya str., Moscow, 109044
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Supplementary files
For citation: Khlebnikov D.V. “Saviour in Powers”: Facts and metafacts, criticism and hypotheses. RSUH/RGGU Bulletin: “Literary Teory. Linguistics. Cultural Studies”, Series. 2018;(8):47-75. https://doi.org/10.28995/2073-6355-2018-8-47-75
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