Russian
icons are, for the most part,
essentially copies of prototypes that appeared in different times and
places. Some of the prototypes are very
old, others comparatively recent. So
icon painting is not a matter of originality, but rather a matter of
reproduction of an existing image. There
may be thousands and thousands of copies of a popular prototype. These copies follow the same general pattern
as an original, which we may call a type.
Icons of Mary, called the Bogomater — the Mother of God — were
particularly popular, so there are hundreds of different Bogomater types.
The most
popular of these types became so because the original was assumed to be
chudotvornaya — “wonder-working,” meaning miracle-working. There are many stories and legends of
miracles involving icons of Mary, and such “power” images were given respect
beyond that given an ordinary icon, which accounts for the great number of
copies made of them.
Even
though the original Marian icon may have been considered “wonder-working,” the
same could not be said of all of the copies made from it. Unless, that is, a particular copy of the
type began to work miracles on its own.
Then, curiously enough, it sometimes received its own name,
distinguishing it from the original prototype.
There is
an interesting icon that became known in the latter part of the 19th century —
the icon is that known as the Неупиваемая чаша, (Neupivaemaya Chasha) the
“Not-Drink–up-able Cup,” usually more elegantly Englished as the “Unfailing
Chalice” or “Inexhaustible Chalice” Mother of God icon.
Now there
are two interesting things about this icon.
The first is that — unlike the “neo-traditional” style image of it shown
above — the popular copies are generally painted in the Westernized style — the
more realistic style borrowed from Western European painting, particulary from
the 1600s onward, by the Russian State Church, in contrast to the stylized and
more abstracted traditional manner favored by the Old Believers, who separated
from the State Church in Russia. The
version shown above is that venerated presently in the Vysotskiy Monastery in
Serpukhov, about 62 miles south of Moscow.
It is not the original, which was destroyed.
The
second interesting thing is that the “Unfailing Chalice” is visually related to
two other icon types. The upper part,
depicting Mary with outraised hands and the Christ Child (Christ Immanuel)
before her, is virtually that of the “Sign” (Znamenie) Mother of God type. The lower portion, with the Christ Child’s
lower body in a eucharistic chalice, is related to the Nikeyskaya (“Nicean”)
Mother of God type, which is also called “Your Womb Becomes the Holy Table.”
Now there
are prayers to go with these individual wonder-working Marian icons, and one of
these would give us the latter “Nikeyskaya” association even if we did not
recognize it. The kontakion, voice 6,
associated with this icon begins: “Бысть
чрево Твое святая Трапеза...” — “Your Womb Becomes the Holy Table.” Those words mean that when pregnant with
Jesus, the womb of Mary became the “holy table,” meaning the altar. This relates to the altar table in Eastern
Orthodoxy, on which the eucharistic bread which is considered the body of Jesus
— the “Lamb of God” — is placed.
There are
several Marian icons with a specific “popular” purpose. One, for example, is used in an attempt to
ease childbirth; another is used to ward off fire from a building. The “Unfailing Chalice” has as its purpose
the aiding of alcoholics who wish to give up their addiction to drinking.
One sees
easily how this association with drinking came about. In the icon there is a (eucharistic)
cup/chalice, and out of it proceeds the child Jesus. The Church Slavic inscription visible on it
reads: АЗЪ ЕСМЬ
ЛОЗА ИСТИННАЯ — AZ ESM LOZA ISTINNAYA, meaning
“I am the true vine…” (taken from John 15:1)
The
association with wine drunk from a cup, with the concept expanded to include
other alcoholic beverages, is a natural link to make. And so this prototype became an
“anti-alcoholism” icon believed to have wondrous powers. Large numbers of copies have been made of it
in the past few decades, and they are recommended to those with drinking problems.
Now all
of this is, of course, a kind of magical thinking, but that kind of thinking —
the use of talismans and amulets and so on — is very ancient and found in many
religions, and it is sometimes probably even effective for one reason or another.
In any
case, the icon has, like most “wonder-working” icons, an interesting origin
story. In the hagiography of Marian
icons, the important date is the “Appearance” (Yavlenie) of an icon. By “Appearance” is not meant when the icon
was first made. It means instead the
time at which a particular icon first began to work miracles — its manifestation
as a “miracle-working” image.
The
“Appearance” of the Unfailing Chalice icon took place in the year 1878,
according to its associated story. A
certain former soldier of the Efremov division of the Tula gubernia
(government/province) was afflicted by a heavy addiction to drinking. He drank away all of his pension, and even
lost most of his belongings to alcohol.
It got so bad that he even was losing the use of his legs, yet he kept
on drinking. And then he had a strange
dream.
An old
staretz (spiritual elder) in a skhima (monk’s hooded garment) appeared to him,
and told him, “Go to the town of Serpukhov, to the monastery of the Entry [into
the Temple of the] Mistress Mother of God.
There is an icon of the “Unfailing Chalice” Mother of God. Perform a moleben [rite involving a series of
special prayers] in front of it, and you shall be healthy in spirit and body.”
Well,
needless to say, the alcoholic ex-soldier went away healed, as the endings of
all such stories go. Then news of the
event was spread abroad, crowds began coming to pray before the image, copies
were made of it, and a new Akathist (long prayer form) composed specially to
that icon was written. And by the way,
the motif of being told to do something three times, but only doing it on the
third telling, as in this tale, is a not unusual motif in these origin stories
of miracle-working icons, which in that respect are much like other folklore.
The
prototype of this icon — at least the one associated with this story — is said
to have been burned along with other icons in 1929, under the Communists. The revival of the veneration of this icon —
in the form of copies painted in various styles — got under way in 1980. Those who began studying icons before that
date but did not keep up on their studies will likely have never heard of it,
because it is better known in E. Orthodoxy today than it ever was earlier, when
its veneration was more localized in the Serpukhov region.
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