Philoxenia Avraam – Lithograph – Mount Athos

Description

Abraham’s Hospitality

Abraham’s Hospitality depicts the three angels who visited Abraham and received his warm hospitality. Next to them are Abraham with his wife Sarah. This biblical event is a model of the Trinity.

For the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, in addition to the explicit testimonies of the New Testament, we also have allusions to the Old Testament. One of these allusions is God’s appearance to Abraham in the form of three men.

In Genesis 18:1, while Abraham was sitting near the oak tree of Mamvre, where he had pitched his tent, he was visited by three unknown men. Abraham received them cordially and lovingly, even though they were strangers to him. He then gave them a rich table. During their conversation, the unknown visitors announced to Abraham that his wife Sarah, despite her advanced age, would have a child within a year, which she did.

The Church Fathers in this biblical event saw a foreshadowing of the mystery of the Holy Trinity, which was fully revealed in the New Testament. This is why Abraham’s hospitality was depicted in the relevant picture. Because later in the biblical narrative two of the three men appear as angels, it prevailed that all three were depicted in the angelic form. Such an icon existed and was honored in ancient times in the place where Abraham’s hospitality took place, according to the testimony of Eusebius of Caesarea.

Lithograph: The Hospitality of Abraham

Using a lithographed copy of Byzantine art, the charismatic hagiographer Nektarios Nastos created this work following the traditional method of artificial aging, as taught on Mount Athos. At the four corners, the icon is painted with a gold finish, between the digging of the artificial aging.

Origin: Mount Athos