How the Virgin Mary is depicted in sacred images
There are only a few variations of the canonical image of the Mother of God:
- The first is the one in which the Heavenly Queen is represented standing at full height with her arms outstretched upward in prayer, and at the level of her chest you can see the baby Jesus;
- In the second version, on the miraculous face, the Virgin Mary is depicted with loose hair and an uncovered head (however, according to the canons of the Orthodox religion, the Mother of God should be depicted with a covered head, which in turn may indicate that the image is of Western origin). Her outer robe is made in red tones, has a golden tint and stars on the shoulders (but not all images have them). Underneath is clothing made in dark green tones and, like the top, it is gilded. The hands of the Blessed Virgin are folded on her chest, with the fingers of her right hand half covering the fingers of her left. And the baby Jesus himself is depicted under the clasped hands of the Mother of God, whose fingers are folded to carry out a nominal blessing, that is, each of her fingers represents a letter of the Greek alphabet:
- The index finger is the letter “I”;
- Bent middle finger - resembles the letter “C”;
- The crossed thumb with the ring finger is the letter “X”;
- And slightly bent and raised it represents the letter “C”.
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Thus, IC XC comes out, that is, the monogram of Jesus Christ.
However, it should be noted that in addition to the canonical image of the sacred face, there are also a large number of other options for its implementation.
