1300 · Ikonen-Museum, Recklinghausen

The feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God is the most important feast of the Virgin in the Eastern Church, in spite of the fact that it has no basis in the gospels. The feast and its associated images had their sources in apocryphal stories and homilies, among which a sermon on the death of the Mother of God by Archbishop John of Thessaloniki (610-649) had the greatest influence on the iconography The emphasis in the depiction of this event is on the reception of her soul into heaven. Following the end of the Iconoclastic periods, the 10th and 11th centuries witnessed a compositional scheme that was largely retained and later only slightly altered or enriched by the addition of further scenes.Show more