Saint Tatiana – Aged Lithography – Mount Athos

Description

Aged Lithography with Saint Tatiana

Saint Martyr Tatiana was from Rome during the reign of Emperor Alexander Severus (222 – 235 AD).

Saint Tatiana held the ecclesiastical office of deaconess and is depicted in hymns as a student of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul. Her distinguished lineage and the zeal with which she performed her deaconal duties earned Tatiana a prominent position among Christians but also provoked the envy of the Pagans, who could not accept the fact that such a woman would despise idols to serve Christians and preach the Gospel of the Lord.

During the persecution of Christians under Severus, Tatiana was arrested and taken with the king to a pagan temple. There, however, the Saint, with a fervent prayer to Christ, shook the idols of paganism and brought them crashing to the ground. For this reason, she was subjected to torture. She was struck and had her eyelids torn off with iron claws. Then she was hanged and had her head shaved. Afterward, she was thrown into a fire, but nothing happened to her. She was then thrown into a pit of starving wild animals, but they dared not harm her. After all these trials, the pagans finally beheaded her precious head.

The Church honors her memory on January 12th.

Aged Lithography: Characteristics

In this particular image, the iconographer monk used the lithography technique to create a work of unique beauty. Specifically, using a lithographed copy of Byzantine art, the monk created this work following the traditional method of artificial aging, as he was taught in the iconography workshops of the Athonian State. Moreover, the artificial aging of the icon is handmade, a process that the monks of Mount Athos place great importance on.

Origin: Mount Athos