1. Why July 26, 2024?
Not everyone knows that the great Christian holiday, Trinity Day, begins on Sunday the fiftieth day after Easter, but it does not end with this day, but lasts all week, until June 30, 2024. So On June 26, the celebration of Holy Trinity Day continues.
2. Why the icon of Andrei Rublev?
“Trinity” by Andrei Rublev (other names: “Hospitality of Abraham”, “Old Testament Trinity”) is the main icon of the holiday of the Holy Trinity Day. Therefore, today venerating the shrine and praying in front of it is natural for an Orthodox Christian.
3. Who is the author of the icon? Who was Andrei Rublev?
Photo: Vyacheslav Prokofiev/TASS
Unfortunately, little is known about Rublev. It is clear that the name given to him at baptism began with A (in those days monastic names were given with the first letter of a secular name). The surname clarifies the origin: the ruble is a tool for rolling leather, which means that the saint was born into a family of artisans. Estimated date and place of birth: 1360, somewhere in the Moscow region. The icon painter was a monk and probably an adherent of the mystical tradition of hesychasm – the spiritual feat of incessant silent prayer and constant purification of the heart. That’s all, barely.
It is true that the chronicles shed light on an entire quite dark era. Russia is restless: there is a “jam” in the Horde: the Horde khans are fighting for supremacy, in our country this resonates with unrest and civil strife. Every year there is an attack: a plague with so many dead that there is no one to bury, then a drought, to the point that Moscow burns in two hours, famine, again the plague… In between, bloody wars. with foreigners and among princes, with frantic cruelty, the destruction and burning of cities and towns and the taking of civilians into captivity. How, tell me, can you just survive in this hellish meat grinder? But to create a masterpiece in which “not only God is great, but man himself is great and spiritual”? Rublev’s “Trinity” is considered not only a masterpiece of world painting, but a “revelation of God”, a point, a portal where the Lord revealed Himself to our genius icon painter. And also a prayer to the Creator.
4. What is depicted on the icon of Andrei Rublev?
Photo: Vyacheslav Prokofiev/TASS
Let us begin with the plot of the icon. For the first time, the fact that God exists in three Persons was revealed to people in Old Testament times, when the Lord appeared to Abraham and his wife Sarah near the oak grove of Mamre (a place near Hebron). “Abraham and Sarah were old in years,” we read in the Book of Genesis. Then the Bible speaks of the phenomenon itself: Abraham “lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men stood against him.” Thus, “through three men,” the Lord appeared to Abraham. Abraham met the “three men,” prepared dinner for them, and when they asked Abraham: “Where is Sarah your wife?” he replied: “Here in the tent.” “And one of them said (the phrase “one of them” is highlighted in the biblical text, emphasizing that the Lord appeared in three Persons): “Next year I will be with you again about this time, and Sarah will have a son. , your wife.” Sarah, hearing the Lord’s words, “laughed to herself, saying, ‘Shall I, when I am old, have this comfort? ‘… And the Lord said to Abraham, Why did Sarah laugh? Is anything too hard for the Lord? “And indeed, at the appointed time, Abraham and Sarah had a son, Isaac, from whom, as God promised, a great people arose, and then it was from Isaac’s offspring that Jesus Christ was born.
The “Old Testament Trinity” accurately represents the appearance of the Holy Trinity to Abraham and Sarah at the Oak of Mamre. And we see the oak tree itself behind the central Angel. Rublev’s “Trinity” is called theology in color, because in the language of an artistic image he conveys to us the Christian dogma about the non-fusion and inseparability of the Three Hypostases of the Holy Trinity: God the Father, God the Son and God. the Holy Spirit-on the consubstantiality of him.
5. What is the secret of Rublev’s “Trinity”?
But how did Rublev do it? Here is what academician B.V. Rauschenbach, the creator of satellite guidance systems and a researcher of ancient Russian icons, writes about it. “The appearance of Rublev’s “Trinity” in the 15th century was not a consequence of the gradual development of icon painting, it was a leap, something explosive. With astonishing courage, Rublev completely excludes scenes of hospitality, removes everything earthly. Unlike earlier icons, it is no longer covered with “cutlery” “in terms of the number of those who participate, this is no longer a joint meal, but the Eucharist, a sacrament that unites not in communion, but in the Church.”
Photo: Sergey Kuksin/RG
Let’s take a closer look at the icon. Let’s start with the obvious: the faces of the three angels are similar, as if the same face were represented in three versions; Thus we have the sensation of what theologians have formulated as “the consubstantiality of the three hypostases, the three faces of God.” ”, its non-fusion and inseparability.
Now let’s move on to the composition. It is built on the principle of a circle, and the thought of one who looks at the Trinity also moves in a circle, or rather, it is as if we cannot go beyond its limits. This circle unites the three Angels into one inseparable one, into the Trinity. But that is not all. Taking a closer look, we will understand that there is a system of concentric circles that can be drawn along the halos, along the contour of the wings, according to the movement of the angelic hands. And its center is a bowl that is on a white table, as if on a throne, a bowl with the head of a calf, a sacrificial animal. But if the inclination of the heads and figures of two angels, directed towards the third, unites them, the angels seem to have a silent conversation, then the gestures of their hands are directed towards this sacrificial bowl. The sacrificial cup reinforces the movements of the hands, becoming the semantic and compositional center of the icon. Because?
And then, attention! Usually, one of the figures on icons necessarily looks at the praying person: for example, if the Child God looks at the Mother of God, then Mary herself will look not at her Son, but at us, believers, responding to our prayerful gaze. addressed to Her. This is the principle of icon painting: the icon draws the worshiper into its space. In Rublev’s “Trinity” this law is violated. About what? So that?
All Angels of the Trinity look to each other for a reason. The closing of the circle of communication, when the Angels lean towards each other and towards the cup, and even their gazes form a circle… Thus, the person who is in front of the icon feels drawn towards the interior of the icon, and his gaze He involuntarily focuses on the sacrificial cup. She is the main thing. And to us, looking at the icon, another secret of God is revealed: the secret of endless Divine Love for us, people. After all, it is out of love for people that God sends his Only Begotten Son into our world: a sacrifice that redeems humanity, a sacrifice that redeems humanity from the bondage of sin. This sacrificial Love of God for us is the center, the focal point in Rublev’s image of the “Trinity.” And the cup here is the Cup of the Eucharist, Communion, the Sacrament of the Christian’s union with Christ.
Andrei Rublev’s masterpiece is full of many more revelations. But it is not enough to look at an icon, with the gaze of an idle lover of painting. Only prayer can bring us closer to the great mystery of God’s love for man, which was once revealed to the icon painter and prayer book Andrei Rublev.
