Posted on 07/15/2018 11:02:29 AM PDT by NRx
It has been my particular honor to create a magnificent shrine and reliquary for the Russian Royal Martyrs. The shrine was commissioned by an American convert to Orthodoxy as a gift to the Hermitage of the Holy Cross, a Russian Orthodox monastery in West Virginia, USA. It was installed in time to commemorate the centenary of the tragic murder of Czar Nicholas II and his entire family, which falls on July 17th, 2018.
The donor and monastery requested a shrine that would reflect the very best of American furniture design and craftsmanship – to unite this cultural heritage with the traditional liturgical form of an icon kiot and reliquary. Since it would hold relics of royal saints it would be fitting for it to exhibit particular splendor and refinement. A second kiot was to hold a reliquary of the Optina Elders.
As a designer, I very much enjoy this problem of uniting traditions in new ways. There is no creativity in copying old solutions to longstanding needs. But to take a uniquely Orthodox piece of furniture – the icon kiot – and render it the manner of fine American furniture of the 18th century, now there is an opportunity for making something new and splendid!
I can say with some national pride that historic American furniture was the finest quality in the world, though it was certainly not the most ornate. In the 18th century, when European furniture was heavily baroque, American craftsmen maintained a sober simplicity, with curves and ornamentation used with great refinement and restraint. The beauty was in the materials. With access to the finest hardwoods in the world, and a belief that “anything worth doing is worth doing right”, American furniture was made to show off the natural beauty of wood and a craftsman’s delight in fine joinery.
An 18th-century American Highboy
I set about designing the kiots with this colonial American philosophy and aesthetic in mind: use the finest woods and show them off with a rich finish; keep the material thicknesses generous and robust; use baroque curves for grace and beauty, but keep them restrained and sober; and allow the contrast of natural materials to serve as ornamentation.
Since the kiots were meant to hold a reliquary as well as an icon, I designed them with an un-typical form – the lower half extending forward as a table. This proved most successful, as it gave architectural weight and stability to the base, and some opportunities for graceful curves.
I specified Honduran mahogany for the construction. Without stain, mahogany has a medium golden color that coordinates beautifully with icons and supports the warm liturgical aesthetic of Orthodox services. Contrasting inlay banding enlivens the key architectural lines, and inlaid details made from mother-of-pearl, ebony, and figured maple create rich ornamental highlights. The finish is polymerized tung oil varnish, hand-rubbed in ten coats.
The icons were painted in Russia by Natalia Aglitskaya, with beautiful raised gesso ornamentation in the haloes of the Royal Martyrs. I made frames for them in embossed nickel-silver basma with dark blue backgrounds, brightly highlighting the icons against the warm mahogany.
Detail of the Royal Martyrs icon, painted by Natalia Aglitskaya
The reliquary was an interesting design challenge. There is not much precedent for wooden reliquaries, and I found that an inlaid wooden box tended naturally to look too much like a jewelry box or tea caddy. Ultimately, I decided to model the reliquary on a Roman sarcophagus – a strongly architectural form with pilasters around sides. This gave it the necessary sepulchral gravitas. The reliquary is copiously inlaid with marquetry banding and mother of pearl. The pilasters are instrument-grade figured maple with ebony bases and capitals.
The interior of the reliquary includes a carved and gilded stone icon made by Jonathan Pageau. It provides a pleasing contrast to the painted icon directly above. The base-plate of the reliquary is sterling silver. Along with the silver lampada, it was fabricated to my design in Taxco, Mexico, with crowns above each relic and engraved names in Slavonic.
This project has taken over a year to design and build, involving the collaboration of a dozen skilled craftsmen. It has been a great pleasure for me to create something so fine, and it is my particular joy that it has been to honor the Royal Martyrs. It may come as a surprise to foreigners that Orthodox Christians in America have a pious devotion to the Russian royal saints. It is fitting that our nation now has a worthy shrine where their relics can be venerated.
Overall design, inlay, and other details: Andrew Gould (New World Byzantine / NWB Studios)
Woodworking: Bruno Sutter (Timber Artisans, LLC)
Wood Turner: Ashley Harwood (Turning Native)
Inlay Banding: El Henson
Wood Finisher: Patrick Carr
Icon Painter: Natalia Aglitskaya
Icon Carver: Jonathan Pageau
Blacksmith: Frank Verga
Silversmith: GWSilver
Engraving: Tom Podhrazsky
Basma Maker: Maxim Lavdinskiy
Rendered design drawing of the shrine and reliquary, by Andrew Gould, 2017 
The kiots under construction
Master carpenter Bruno Sutter (left) with the finished kiots 
The author preparing the inlay on the reliquary 
The author cutting out the mother-of-pearl Russian Imperial Eagle with a jeweler’s saw 
The eagle inlay ready for installation 
Master finisher Patrick Carr applying the varnish 
The author cladding the icon frames in nickel-silver basma 
The basma background gets painted blue, and the excess rubbed off, for a jeweled enamel-like effect. 
Blacksmith Frank Verga forging the iron hooks for the lampadas 
The author’s assistant, Tom Podhrazsky, engraving the silver reliquary base-plate 
The carved icon for the reliquary lid underway in Jonathan Pageau’s workshop 
The completed icon
Awesome work!
Well done and tasteful.
But while we're on the subject of the Russian Orthodox Church, here's something some should find interesting...
From the Russian Orthodox Church's website...
12 February 2016
Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC), has issued a statement on behalf of the Council hailing the historic meeting of Pope Francis, pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, and Patriarch Kirill, primate of the Russian Orthodox Church.
The two leaders met on 12 February in Havana, Cuba.
The Russian Orthodox Church is the largest member church in the WCC..."
_______________________________________________________
Catch that? The Russian Orthodox Church is the largest member of the World Council of Churches! (WCC)
That is all you need to know to understand that it is a sham operation. Reverend Wright’s fake church United Church of Christ (UCC) is also a member. In fact, his (communist) “Liberation Theology” was concocted by the KGB.
The Russians must laugh their butts off at how easily westerners can be tricked and deceived.
The Russian Orthodox Church is a member of the (communist) World Council of Churches:
https://www.oikoumene.org/en/member-churches/russian-orthodox-church
____________________________________
From David Horowitz's FrontPageMag.com/DiscoverTheNetworks.org:
Profile: WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES (WCC)
[lots more at link...]
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7514
_______________________________________________________
From David Horowitz's FrontPageMag.com/DiscoverTheNetworks.org:
Profile: LIBERATION THEOLOGY
“...liberation theology’s real creator was the Soviet Union’s foreign intelligence and domestic security agency, the KGB.
Patriarch Kirill, who today heads Russian Orthodox Church, secretly worked for the KGB under the code name “Mikhailov” and spent some 40 years promoting liberation theology.
Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest-ranking Soviet-bloc official ever to defect to the West, writes: “Liberation theology has been generally understood to be a marriage of Marxism and Christianity.
What has not been understood is that it was not the product of Christians who pursued Communism, but of Communists who pursued Christians....
Its genesis was part of a highly classified Party/State Disinformation Program, formally approved in 1960 by KGB chairman Aleksandr Shelepin and Politburo member Aleksei Kirichenko, then the second in the party hierarchy after Nikita Khrushchev.”
Adds Pacepa: “In 1971, the KGB sent Kirill — who had just been elevated to the rank of archimandrite — to Geneva as emissary of the Russian Orthodox Church to the World Council of Churches.... Kirill/Mikhailov’s main task was to involve the WCC in spreading the new liberation theology throughout Latin America.
In 1975, the KGB was able to infiltrate Kirill into the Central Committee of the WCC — a position he held until he was “elected” patriarch of Russia, in 2009.
Not long after he joined the Central Committee, Kirill reported to the KGB: ‘Now the agenda of the WCC [World Council of Churches] is also our agenda.’”
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=2990
____________________________________________
August, 2006
It’s an odd project considering that freedom of religion exists almost exclusively on paper in the closed communist country.
North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il is supposed to be a communist atheist.
So why has he made promoting the Russia Orthodox Church his latest pet project?
On August 13, the country’s first Orthodox church is to be opened in the capital city of Pyongyang.
Russian Metropolitan Bishop Kyrill, second in command within the Church after the Patriarch, will travel to Pyongyang to christen the new house of worship. ...”
It’s very beautiful. I loved the use of historical American furniture styles, and also the Roman sarcophagus design of the reliquary.
I like people who weren’t ...
How long before some on the left will find it offensive?
Magnificent
Not all members of the royal line were saints or worthy of being called as such - but for those who were: the artwork is nice, but it’s more important to live out their legacy in deed and truth.
There should be a movement to place a similar shrine to the martyrs of communism (150 M or so ?) in every city and town in the US. That is a movement I could dedicate what years I have left to.
Works of art.
I have a small icon of one the new martyrs to communism, Saint Elizabeth, who was a convert and a widow I believe.
He was no martyr, no saint.
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