Domuspatris

Sorry, you need to install flash to see this content.

Windows from Heaven

Serial about Russian Iconography

A serial of documentaries on the historical debate on icons in Eastern Christianity, the various local traditions, the reasons of the painters choices, how icons are painted, the techniques, worship of icons, the miracles related to the most famous icons in Russia ...
The serial is intended for a very wide audience and aims to cover all unclear points and questions about the perception of iconography in the West.

Ideas and suggestions

The architecture and iconography of Orthodox Churches raise a lot of questions to a Western visitor:

Why so many icons and images but not statues in Orthodox churches?
How can we understand the language and the symbols of icons?
What icons mean for a believer in Russia?
Why is the veneration of icons so strong in Russia?
What do we know about ancient icon painters?
How do icons differ from European religious paintings?
How were the most famous icons saved during the Soviet era?

Imagine our Western hero investigating through churches and museums. Along the way, he meets art critics, historians, icon painters, priests and many other specialists. He also becomes acquainted with people who have experienced the miraculous actions of God through icons, or who have come across the miracle of icons that drip oil.The film will include rare video records from academic and scientific archives – the archive of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, the Russian State Library, the Russian State Arts Library and others.

Icons and Iconoclasm

There probably isn't a more enigmatic topic in the religious practice of the Christian church. Appearing at the very dawn of Christianity, icons almost immediately became a subject of debate, disagreements and later — namely during the period of the Ecumenical Councils — they became the subject of arguments over dogma and Church edicts. Why did the iconoclasts suffer defeat, thereby allowing th...

A first approach is to give answers to the many questions arising from a foreigner. What exactly are icons, a special type of painting or something different? Why do people kiss icons? Why do the Orthodox portraits of the Blessed Virgin differ so greatly from the Italian Madonnas? Why are there so many different icons of the Blessed Virgin? What was the first icon to be painted? Is it somehow...