PANAYOTIS L.

VOCOTOPOULOS

Remarks on the Iconography of

St. Cyril of Alexandria and of St. John
Damascene in Cretan Painting1

t. Cyril, patriarch of Alexandria in the first half of the fourth century, is

usually represented in Byzantine and Post-Byzantine art wearing the phelonion,
with a pointed bonnet on his head2 (Pl. 1). This type was superseded in the early
seventeenth century in paintings of the Cretan school by another one, where he
wears the sakkos, derived from the imperial vestments, which was first adopted
by the patriarchs of Constantinople, and gradually by all the orthodox bishops.3
The earliest examples of this new type known to me are two icons by the painters Jeremias Palladas and Iakovos Daronas.
Palladas, a monk of the monastery of Sinai mentioned between 1608 and
1645, was active in his native Heraklion, where his monastery had a metochion.4
According to the patriarch of Jerusalem Nektarios the Cretan (16611669), he
was considered as one of the best painters of the period, whose art is admired by
everybody and may be compared to the paintings of the worthy ancient iconographers, whom he imitated better than anybody else.5 On a recently cleaned
icon of the Patriarchate of Alexandria, Palladas depicted together three of the
most famous patriarch of Alexandria Cyril, Athanasius and John the Almsgiver in the composition comparable to that established for the Three Hierarchs
Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus and John Chrysostom (Pl. 2),6 but also used
1 The following text is essentially the one read at the Belgrade conference; only footnotes
were added.
2 LCI, 6, 1921 (U. Knoben). On the saint's headdress see S. der Nersessian in P. Underwood (ed.), The Kariye Djami, 4, (Princeton, 1975), 318, no. 80; C. Walter, The Portrait of Jakov of
Serres in Londin, Additional 39626, Its place in Paleologue manuscript illumination, Zograf, 7 (Belgrade 1977), 67.
3 T. Papas, Geschichte der Messgewnder im byzantinischen Ritus, Mnchen 1965, 105117.
4 On this painter, cf. M. Kazanaki-Lappa, O zwgrcoi to Xandka kat2 t 170 awna,
Thesaurismata, 18 (1981), 234236; M. Chatzidakis, Icons of Patmos, Athens 1985, 119; P. L. Vocotopoulos, Eknej tj Kerkraj, Athens 1990, 82, with the previous bibliography.
5 Nektarios of Jerusalem, 'Epitom tj eroksmikj storaj, Venice 1677, 158.
6 N. B. Drandakis, 'Eikonograca t%n Tri%n 'Ierarx%n, Ioannina 1969.

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PANAYOTIS L. VOCOTOPOULOS

for other groups of related figures, such as three Archibishops of Crete or Patriarchs of Jerusalem in an icon of the late sixteenth century by Michael Damaskinos, now in the Byzantine Museum in Athens.7 They wear the sakkos, two epitrachilia, as is customary for the patriarchs of Alexandria, and a peculiar kind of
orthodox mitre, whose nearest parallel may be found in a seventeenth-century depiction of the katholikos of Georgia.8 One may surmise that this type of mitre
soon became obsolete, because the Cretan painter John Kornaros, who overpainted the icon in the late eighteenth century, replaced the mitres with usual ones. It
may be noted that Palladas has also portrayed St. Cyril on another icon according to the older establishes type, with a phelonion and a pointed cap (Pl. 1).
Iakovos Daronas, a contemporary of Palladas, also established in the Cretan
capital, where he is mentioned between 1614 and 1623,9 painted an iconostasis
door with St. Cyril wearing again the sakkos but with a triple tiara instead of a
mitre the tiara is a prerogative not only of the popes of Rome but also of the
patriarchs of Alexandria (Pl. 3).
The introduction of this new type of St. Cyril, as well as the depiction of
the three principal patriarchs of Alexandria together, may perhaps be attributed to
the initiative of another famous bearer of that name: Cyril Loukaris, also a native
of Crete, a staunch defender of orthodoxy against Latin propaganda, who was patriarch of Alexandria in the first two decades of the seventeenth century before
becoming Patriarch of Constantinople in 1620 and being strangled by the Turks
on 27th of June 1638.10
The type os St. Cyril of Alexandria wearing the sakkos was further elaborated a few decades later by Emmanuel Tzanes, the foremost Cretan painter of the
second half of the seventeenth century.11 When commissioned in 1654 to paint
the doors of the iconostasis of the church of Sts. Jason and Sosipatros in Corfu,
he depicted St. Cyril with a sakkos, a baroque mitre, and holding a scroll with a
text referring to the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father alone and not
also from the Son, as is admitted by the Latin Church12 (Pl. 4). Corfu was at that
time a Venetian possession, and the Orthodox archbishopic had long ago been
abolished and substituted by a Catholic one, to which were subjected the ortho7 M. Achimastou-Potamianou, Painting of the Three Hierarchs by Michael Damaskinos, Athens Annals of Archeology, XIX (Athens, 1986), 8397.
8 The drawing was made by the Sicilian Orientalist Cristoforo de Castelli, who visited the region between 1627 and 1654: Don C. de Castelli, Relazione e Album dei schizzi sulla Georgia del secolo XVII, Tbilissi 1976, 373, fig. 369. Crowns of the rulers of Georgia from the same period are depicted on figs. 3 and 5. Cf. a seventeenth-century mitre in the Museum of Tbilissi (T. Sanikidze, Art
Museum of Georgia, TbilissiLeningrad 1985, fig. 55). Today the mitres of the patriarchs of Georgia are surrounded in their lower part by a continious vertical border (I. Reissner, Georgien, GeschichteKunstKultur, FreiburgBasleVienna 1989, fig. p. 93, 95.
9 M. Chatzidakis, 'Ellgej zwgrcoi met2 tn 'Al3sh (14501830), 1, Athens 1987, 257.
10 On Cyril Loukaris, see G. Hering, kumenisches Patriarchat und europische Politik
16201638, Wiesbaden 1968; on his Alexandrian period, see Ch. Papadopoulos, Krilloj Loykpij, Athens 19392, 1536.
11 On Emmanuel Tzanes, see P. L. Vocotopoulos, Ekoj tj Kerkraj, 104108.
12 Ibidem, 116117, fig. 221.

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REMARKS ON THE ICONOGRAPHY

dox priest and faithful.13 The quotation from the writings of St. Cyril against the
Filioque was meant to show that the Orthodox Church has preserved unaltered
the teachings of the Early Fathers, as opposed to the Latin Church. Since St.
Cyril is recognized by both churches, the ruling Latins had to tolerate this act of
defiance. It may be noted that Tzanes had alredy painted St. Cyril in the same
stance, wearing a sakkos and holding a winding scroll, but with the usual bonnet,
in a small icon now in the Byzantine Museum in Athens, dated 1648 (Pl. 5).14
Since he started painting icons for the church of Sts. Jason and Sosipatros as
early as 1649, we may surmise that this was a project for the door he painted a
few years later.
The other two doors of the iconostasis of the same church in Corfu were also decorated by Emmanuel Tzanes in 1654 with representations of Sts. John of
Damascus (Pl. 6) and Gregory Palamas, holding again scrols about the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father alone.15 St. John Damascene, who held
an important post in the Ummayad court before retiring to the monastery of St.
Sabbas near Jerusalem, was usually depicted wearing monastic garments and a
turban.16 Tzanes departed here again from the traditional iconographic scheme,
and painted him in church vestments wearing a phelonion, epigonation, epitrachelion and hood. Both the new types of St. Cyril with a baroque mitre and of St.
John of Damascus with church vestments appear to have been invented by Tzanes, since no earlier dated examples are known. They were repeated in the late
seventeenth and in the eighteenth century in many iconostasis doors on the island
of Corfu.17

Panajotis L. Vokotopulos
ZAPAAWA O IKONOGRAFIJI SV. KIRILA ALEKSANDRIJSKOG
I SV. JOVANA DAMASKINA U KRITSKOM SLIKARSTVU
Rezime
Autor razmatra ikonografske novine do kojih dolazi u kritskom slikarstvu
H i H veka u predstavqawu svetih crkvenih otaca, Kirila Aleksandrijskog
i Jovana Damaskina. Na primerima ikonopisa Jeremije Paladasa, Jakova Daronasa
i Emanuila Canea, pokazano je kako se u ovom periodu sveti Kiril, umesto sa mitrom, prikazuje sa baroknom tijarom, dok se tradicionalna monaka odora sa turbanom svetog Jovana, zamewuje liturgijskom odedom sa kapuqaom. Likovi obojice svetiteqa, na ovaj nain, postepeno poprimaju savremeni izgled pravoslavnih
arhijereja (arhi)episkopa.
A. Tsitsas, =H kklhsa tj Kerkraj kat2 t0n Latinokratan 12671797, Corfu 1969.
G. Sotiriou, 'Od0goj to Byzantnoy Moyseoy, Athens 1956, 23, No. 420, Pl. XXXb.
15 P. L. Vocotopoulos, op. cit., 117120, fig. 5657.
16 LCI, 7, 102104 (G. Kaster); G. Babi, Les moines-potes dans l'glise de la Mre de
Dieu Studenica, in Studenica et l'art byzantin autour de l'anne 1200, Belgrade 1988, 206210.
17 P. L. Vocotopoulos, op. cit., 117118; Idem, 'Idiomorcej stn diakosm0sh t%n kerkyaik%n tmpwn, Kecallhnaka Xronik2, 5 (1986), 152156, fig. 1017, 19.
13
14

33

Jeremias Palladas, Saint Cyril of Alexandria, Old Cairo, Sante George

Jeremias Palladas, Saint Cyril, Athanasius and John the Almsgiver,

Patriarchs of Alexandria, Alexandria, Patriarchate

Iakovos Daronas, Saint Cyril of Alexandria, Alexandria, Patriarchate

Emmanuel Tzanes, Saint Cyril of Alexandria, Panaghia Antivouniotissa

(formerly in the church of Sts. Jason and Sosipatros)

Emmanuel Tzanes, Saint Cyril of Alexandria, Athens, Byzantine Museum

(Photo courtesy of the Byzantine Museum, Athens)

Emmanuel Tzanes, Saint John of Damascus, Corfu,

Sts. Jason and Sosipatros