Dear friends!

We continue to acquaint you with Artistic Heritage of Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. Today we are going to concentrate your attention on the image of St. Prochorus the Wonderworker, the painting in Lavra’s Refectory and the adjoining Church of Sts. Anthony and Theodosius Pechersky.

St. Prochorus the Wonderworker (Lobodnyk) was painted by Ivan Izhakevych on the west wall of the Refectory. To the right of this work you can find the image of St. Luka, the housekeeper of Pechersk monastery.

Looking at this image you can see an old man with deep-set and dark-circled eyes, pale, tired and wrinkled face, gray hair and beard as well as tightly compressed small lips. The features of St. Prochorus’s portrait are expressive and were, probably, created by the author’s imagination.

If we compare the full-height image of St. Prochorus from the Refectory with its waist-high image in the Dormition Cathedral (from which only an old photograph has been left), we will obviously observe its secondary nature. The photo with the figure of St. Prochorus from the Dormition Cathedral shows that Izhakevych inscribed the image of the Reverend in the medallion. It was not painted in the front, but in the three-quarter position. This is actually the only difference between two images of the saint created at different periods of time. The proportions and features of the face, hair, beard, even bread in the hands of the Saint look the same. Thus, it is easy to figure out that to paint the image of St. Prochorus in the Refectory in 1903 Ivan Izhakevych used his sketch made in the 1890s. However, the psychological richness of the Refectory image, created ten years later, appears to be much more intensive. The artist carefully follows the text of Paterik Pechersky, which tells its readers about miraculous deeds of Saint Prochorus the Wonderworker, and gives mystical colors to its image. Prochorus’s burning and piercing glance can hardly be forgotten. The same mood is reflected in the background of the painting, i.e. the sky behind the monk, where stripes of clouds interwine with the crimson-lemon color of the clear evening sky. This contrast adds the tinge of understatement and anxiety to the sunset landscape.

It is interesting to note, that the image of St. Prochorus the Wonderworker on the postcards of P. Plakhov’s Publishing House copies the image of the same Saint in Lavra’s Refectory. No graphic refinement or illustrative transformation was needed. Its emotional and aesthetic impact on the faithful, the buyers of the postcards, was foreseen by Ivan Izhakevych long before its mass reproduction.

Captions to the illustration:

1. Ivan Izhakevych. St. Prochorus the Wonderworker (Lobodnyk). 1903 Frescoes of Lavra’s Refectory and the adjoining Church of Sts. Anthony and Theodosius Pechersky.

2. Ivan Izhakevych. St. Prochorus the Wonderworker (Lobodnyk). Photograph of the frescoes of Dormition Cathedral, 1890s.

3. Ivan Izhakevych. St. Prochorus the Wonderworker (Lobodnyk). Postcard. P. Plakhov’s Publishing House. Early 20th century.

Prepared by Olena Pitateleva

Senior Research Associate

Research Division of Studying Artistic Heritage