Icon of Winged Christ the Blessed Silence with a Seraph in His Bosom

Christ the Blessed Silence

Russian, circa 1700 (30.7 x 27 cm)

(Image from The Temple Gallery)

I am inspired this morning to make some brief remarks on this icon to which Brandon Watson (who blogs at Siris) drew my attention some days ago when I was blogging about various depictions of Christ as a winged figure.

Especially intriguing for me in the above icon is the seraph held in the bosom of Christ. In response to Brandon, I wondered if the seraph were an allusion to the story of St. Francis receiving the stigmata from a six-winged 'Christ' in a baffling vision in which Christ, a seraph, and the soul of St. Francis all three appear identical. Readers will recall that I devoted several blog entries to this puzzling vision.

But perhaps the icon above is presenting the Holy Spirit as emanating from the bosom of the Son -- except that I've never heard of the Spirit being depicted as a seraph. A dove, yes; but a seraph, no . . . which may suggest nothing other than my ignorance.

I'm hoping that Alexander Boguslawski, professor of Russian Studies at Rollins College might have some illuminating remarks on this icon, for he noticed that I had quoted his remarks on the depiction of a winged Christ in Rublev's famous icon presenting the Old Testament Trinity, so he posted an interesting comment on that particular blog entry.

But we'll just have to wait on that.

Meanwhile, here's a modern-day icon, a beautiful, angelic Sophie revealing words about her role in creation -- and one can also find this same Sophie linked to Milton's Paradise Lost.