Our Lady Tricheirousa

Tricheirousa of the Three Hands, 14th century, Hilandar Monastery, Athos

The Mother of God Tricheirousa , the 'three-handed', is an icon of Mary, the mother of Jesus . It is located in the Serbian Orthodox Hilandar Monastery on Mount Athos in Greece and is one of the most important icons of the Serbian Orthodox Church.

Naming

The Mother of God Tricheirousa ( German also sometimes written Mother of God Tricherousai ) is named after her Greek name Panagia i Tricherousa , the All Holy Virgin of the Three Hands ( Greek Παναγία η Τριχερούσα ). The third hand is a votive offering , the image of a hand that was donated and added to the picture as a thank you.

In the Serbian language the icon is called Bogorodica Trojeručica .

Description and origin

The double-sided icon shows the image of the Mother of God with the baby Jesus on the right arm on the front . At the beginning of the 20th century a silver overlay (oklad) was added, which only leaves the faces and hands of the two figures free. On the back of the icon there is an image of Saint Nicholas of Myra .

In its current, overpainted version, the 94 × 67 cm wooden icon probably dates from the middle of the 14th century. Some experts also suspect that today's icon could be a copy from the 18th century.

The representation of the third hand can be found today in the lower left corner of the icon. In older copies of the icon, however, it was nailed to the right of center.

According to legend, the icon is said to have come from Damascus and was brought to Serbia via Jerusalem in the 13th century. Art historical research suggests, however, that the icon is of Serbian origin and was made in Skopje.

It was probably transferred to Mount Athos in Greece at the end of the 14th century after the conquest of Skopje by the Ottoman Empire and the advance of Islam in the region.

Icon type

The icon of trojeručica belongs to the nature of their representation of Mary to the Byzantine type of Dexiokratousa , as the Mother of God , the baby Jesus holds with her right arm. This distinguishes them from the Hodegetria type , in which the child is shown on the left arm.

Legends

As with numerous other famous icons, there are numerous legends surrounding the icon of the Blessed Mother Tricheirousa, which believers consider to be miraculous . These have only been handed down in writing since the late 17th century.

The legends tell that the icon was tied on the back of a donkey and brought to Athos.

According to legend, the votive hand of John of Damascus was added to the icon. This famous theologian and church father from the 8th century is said to have prayed in front of the icon and his hand, which had been chopped off by the caliph (or, according to another version of an iconoclastic emperor), grew back.

Other legends report that the icon, originally used for processions, miraculously wandered from the altar to the place of the abbot (Igoumenos). Eventually the icon was accepted as an abbot. This was reflected in the reforms in Hilandar Monastery, which switched to an idiorhythmic form of organization in which the monks live separately without an abbot and only meet for worship.

Succession

Since the 14th century there have been representations of Mary, especially in Serbia, based on the icon of the Mother of God Tricheirousa :

• Three-handed frescoes can be found in the village church of Karan in today's Serbia and in Skopje in today's North Macedonia .
• A copy of the icon was brought to Russia in the 17th century and was often copied there again.
• A copy of the icon is in the Greek Orthodox Church in Wiesbaden-Biebrich .

Images of the icon were also used as copperplate engravings and as so-called print icons printed on paper:

• In 1816 the Hilandar monk Pavel the Bulgarian made the first printing icon.
• In two engravings from 1817 and 1818 the tricheirousa was recorded as the central motif with the saints Sava and Simeon Nemanja.

• 

  Our Lady Tricheirousa,
  original 14th century in Hilandar Monastery, Greece

• 

  Our Lady Tricheirousa,
  copy 19th century

• 

  Our Lady Tricheirousa,
  copy in Troyan Monastery, Bulgaria

literature

• Ivan Bentchev: The 'three-handed' icon of the Mother of God in the Hilandar monastery on Athos. In: Hermeneia. Journal for Eastern Church Art 1 , Bochum 1993, pp. 46–52.
• Bojan Miljković: The history about the miraculous icons of the Hilandar Monastery. In: Zograf No. 31 (2006–2007), doi : 10.2298 / ZOG0731219M , pp. 219–228.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Bojan Miljković: The history of the miraculous icons of the Hilandar Monastery . In: Zograf No. 31 (2006-2007), doi : 10.2298 / ZOG0731219M , pp. 219-228.
2. ↑ Mother of God Three-handed ( Memento from October 15, 2013 in the Internet Archive )