The Mother of God, Joy of the Afflicted

Among the objects of religious worship commonly used in Russia, were crosses and cast metal alloy icons. Since the end of the 17th c., they were mostly produced by the Old Ritualists, who rejected the liturgical reforms started by Patriarch Nikon; because of this, they were persecuted by the official state and Church powers. The Old Ritualists, also known as Old Believers, used their own icon exclusively because they believed the objects of worship considered legal after Nikon's reform to be heretical and the reform itself to be the beginning of the end times. The high-quality casts made by the Old Believers were also gladly used by the members of the official Moscow Orthodox Church. One of the themes reproduced in the metal casts was the depiction of the Mother of God Joy of the Afflicted, the beginnings of which date back to the second half of the 17th c., see S.12772MŁ, S.12800MŁ, S.12806MŁ, S.12835MŁ. One of the forms in which this image was depicted was a triptych - an icon consisting of three parts connected by hinges. The main scene was placed on the central panel, under a characteristic crowning called a 'kokoshnik', as can be seen on the displayed icon. On the Joy of the Afflicted portrayals, together with the figure of the Mother of God standing among the suffering and the needy, there is the depiction of Christ in a crown, as the King in Glory giving his blessing with both hands. On the one preserved side panel, there are two saints, monks from the time of the old Rus - Sergius of Radonezh and Alexander Svirsky. Sergius of Radonezh, who lived in the 14th c., worked to revitalise the monastic life in Rus and was the founder of nine monasteries, including the Holy Trinity monastery (later, the Troitsko-Sergiyevskaya, near Moscow). Alexander Svirsky, who lived in the 15th/16th c., entered a monastery on Valaam (an archipelago in Karelia). As a monk, for many years, he lived in exceedingly difficult conditions and in complete isolation on the river Svir. Teresa Bagińska-Żurawska https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9243-3967