For centuries, our region has been a meeting place of Latin culture and the tradition of Eastern Christianity. While in the Middle Ages Lublin was part of the Kingdom of Poland, the nearby lands, where most of the presented artefacts were made, were part of Halych-Volynian Ruthenia with its capital in Chełm. The process of the incorporation of these lands began under Casimir the Great. The population of this area professed Christianity in the Byzantine-Ruthenian Orthodox version, being, together with the Ruthenian Church, subjected to the Patriarchs of Constantinople. Orthodox culture was also influential due to the progressive integration of the Crown and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (that was mostly Orthodox), the best example of which is the monumental Chapel of the Holy Trinity in the Castle. The Union of Lublin was succeeded by the Union of Brest in 1596, during which the majority of Orthodox believers recognised the pope as the head of the Church and, keeping the Byzantine liturgical rite, adopted most of the Catholic dogmas, forming the Uniate Church. This was of fundamental importance for religious relations in the Commonwealth, served the unity of the state and led to the almost complete ousting of Orthodoxy.
The situation changed dramatically as a result of the partitions of the Commonwealth at the end of the 18th century. The Russian Empire treated the Unites as people that were violently separated from the Orthodox Church and often in a brutal way converted them to Orthodoxy. This was accompanied by the destruction of images and liturgical equipment associated with the Latin Church, and sometimes even of the temples themselves. In 1875, the Uniate Church was finally liquidated in the territory of the Russian partition, with the Uniate diocese of Chełm being the last one. After regaining independence, the situation was, to some extent, changed once more. Repressions from the times of the Partitions contributed to the perception of Orthodoxy as an element of Russification, hence administrative actions aimed at Polonisation and Catholicisation of Orthodox parishes were taken.
The exhibition begins with a map with marked places from which the monuments come. In most of these places, orthodox churches ceased to exist in 1938 – they were destroyed along with more than a hundred others during the so-called polonisation and revindication action carried out by the Polish state. Professor Michał Niechaj, an outstanding expert on the Christian East, who was born in a Uniate family, rescued the icons from the destroyed temples. During WWII they ended up in the Museum. Other icons were obtained from abandoned orthodox churches, ruined after the expulsion of almost all of the Orthodox inhabitants of the Lublin Voivodeship in 1944–1947.
The presented monuments are usually the only witnesses of the difficult fate of temples, after which there is nothing left. They are also the few remaining signs of centuries-old presence of followers of Eastern Christianity. The historical conditions are symbolically resembled by an empty Iconostasis – devoid of sacred representations, which should fill it in a strictly established order. A gallery layout according to iconographic types was adopted for icons torn from their natural place and context – that cannot be reproduced in the museum.
Monumental icons of Christ Pantocrator were among the most important ones in the orthodox churches. They were located at the bottom of the Iconostasis in its first tier (Sovereign). Next to them one can see images of Christ in Majesty from the Deesis and other Christological icons. One should note the stylistic uniformity of the representations – a similar type of Christ’s face, body layout, colour scheme – what gives an idea of the specificity of the religious art of this region.
Mary icons are more diverse. In the depictions of Our Lady one can easily follow the mixture of the art of the East and the West. More traditional icons are placed next to paintings far from orthodoxy, with visible influence of Western European art, including modifications of iconographic schemes and Latin details, e.g. ornamental ones.
Saints are an important theme of Orthodox painting. They have their place in the Iconostasis in the first row – in the form of an icon of the patron of a given temple and a saint especially venerated in a given area, which in Poland was most often St Nicholas. Saints – especially the apostles – placed in the Deesis, plead for sinful humanity at the throne of Christ.
The icons depicting the most important feasts of the liturgical year formed the Feasts tier, and ones depicting biblical events from the Resurrection of Christ to the Pentecost Sunday – the Pentecost Sunday tier.
Danuta Szewczyk-Prokurat
The exhibition is accompanied by works performed by
Female Choir of the Monastery of the Protection of Our Lady in Turkowice
