Archangel Michael

A special image in the Moscow Orthodox Church tradition is the icon of St. Archangel Michael Archistrategos of the Heavenly Hosts, titled Archangel Michael Voivode (military commander) of Mighty Powers in Russian. The depiction refers to the Apocalypse of John without being an illustration of its content, see S.12767MŁ. On the presented icon, Archangel Michael is shown as a winged, armed horseman with a face as red as the sun and a cloud under his feet is a harbinger of the end times (Apocalypse 10:1). He gallops on a red, winged horse over the abyss, from which emerge a dragon - the cast out Satan (Apocalypse 20:2-3) - and a ruined city - the fallen Babylon (Apocalypse 18:1-2). At the lips of the Archangel, there is the trumpet heralding the Judgement and in his outstretched hands, there are the Gospels and incense (Apocalypse 8:3), as well as a cross and a spear. Between his hands, there is the arch of a rainbow (Apocalypse 10:1-2, 7-8). In the corner of the icon, a half-figure of the young Christ Emmanuel behind a table evokes the mystery of Incarnation and the Redemptive Sacrifice of Christ. The models for this icon were the older Byzantine and Rus depictions of the Archangel as a guide on the way to salvation. The Apocalypse image of Archangel Michael formed in the spheres of the state-church power in Moscow in the 16th c. It is possible that the subject was developed in the sphere of Metropolitan Macarius during the reign of Ivan IV the Terrible. The icon had a theological and didactic message. After the fall of Byzantium, the Moscow state was to be the successor of the Christian Constantinople as the Third Rome, chosen by God on the way to salvation and propagation of faith. The subject was supposed to convey, among other things, the idea of the Moscow state as chosen by God. Archangel Michael the Archistrategos was supposed to be its special protector - the guide during the end times of the Russian tsardom as the stronghold of Orthodox Christianity. Teresa Bagińska-Żurawska https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9243-3967