Agios Ioannis the Russian – Gold printing with sandblasting – Mount Athos

Description

Sandblasted gilding with Saint John the Russian
An amazing gold print with Saint John the Russian.

Saint John the Russian was born in 1690 AD. in a village of the so-called Little Russia. He served in the army during the reign of Peter the Great in Russia. He took part in the war he waged against the Turks in 1711 AD. and was taken prisoner by the Tartars.

The Tatars sold him to an Ottoman officer Hipparchus who came from Procopius in Asia Minor. The aga took him with him to his village. Many of his captured compatriots repented of the threats of the Ottomans and became Muslims.

Saint John, however, with determination and prudence, endured the slavery and mistreatment of his master and the insults of the Ottomans, remaining faithful to Jesus Christ.
The Lord, seeing his faith and hearing his confession, softened the hard heart of the aga and in time he liked John. The great humility and meekness of the saint contributed to this. The aga had assigned John to take care of the animals in the stable. John preferred to live and sleep there, despite his master’s urgings to stay in a room outside the stable.

Saint John the Russian lived by fasting, abstinence and prayer. Nearing the end of his life, he became seriously ill but still lived in the stable and submitted his body to deprivation.

Sensing his end, Saint John asked to receive communion of the Immaculate Mysteries. As soon as Saint John the Russian received the body and blood of the Lord, he surrendered his soul. It was the year 1730 AD. The holy relic of the saint is kept in Neo Prokopi, Evia. The Church honors his memory on May 27.

Sandblasted Gold Printing: Characteristics
In the icon with the representation of Saint John the Russian, the iconographic monk used the technique of gold printing creating a work of unique beauty. Gold printing is a type of thermotype technique. Thermography is the name of the method by which very thin metallic gold foil is placed on surfaces such as wood, leather, cardboard, plastic by pressing a heated embossed plate (cliché) onto our surface. Around the image you also use the sandblasting technique, it is the technical processing by which the corrosion of a part or the whole of a surface is achieved by throwing sand under pressure.