Icon of the Theotokos “Burning Bush”- T113

Description

This icon is from the famous Monastery of Solovki in the northern Archangel district of Russia on the White Sea.   It was an infamous prison camp when the Soviet authorities closed the monastery after they took power in the early 20th century.  They imprisoned and mercilessly killed many monks and bishops there, as well as many laymen, mostly for just being Christians.  Since the fall of Communism in Russia, the monastery is now restored.

The icon shows the Virgin Mary as an icon of the Burning Bush, which was not consumed by fire before Moses, in that she was not consumed by having the Infinite and brilliant fire of the Godhead within her womb.  The Heavenly Jerusalem is depicted on her chest, while in the four corners of the icon are prophecies, and the hierarchies of angels and nature surround her, and the living presence of the Ancient of Days (the way that God as Christ appeared to men before He was born on earth, as in the visions of Ezekiel and Daniel, and in Revelation) are shown in and around the eight pointed star that surrounds the Virgin and Divine Child.  The shadow in the Old Testament is more revealed to us in the New.