Descent to the Abyss

Small icons cast in brass, with a pin for hanging, used as personal objects of worship. From the end of the 17th c., their production was developed and perfected mainly by workshops of Old Ritualists (known as Old Believers), who did not accept Moscow's Patriarch Nikon's liturgical reform in the middle of the 17th c. The Old Believers used their own objects of worship exclusively and did not use the icons made in the official sphere of the Moscow Orthodox Church. Similarly, they did not recognise the new and, in their opinion, heretical iconography which developed after the schism in the Church. The subject of Christ's resurrection, as an event without witnesses, had been depicted indirectly in Eastern Christianity for centuries. It was the portrayal of the women at the tomb, described in the Gospels or the depiction of the Harrowing of Hell, asserted in prophecies and in the Apostolic Letters. This event of the Passion of Christ was the final one before His resurrection. The depiction of this portrayal, described under S.12766MŁ, S.12823MŁ, S.12948MŁ, S.12949MŁ, appeared in Christian art before the end of the first millennium. Only in the 17th-18th c., under the influence of Western European art, the Harrowing of Hell was supplemented with the depiction of the resurrected Saviour shown by the empty grave. For the Old Believers, a new, non-traditional visual message of this type was unacceptable. They remained faithful to the principle of depicting the resurrection through the image of the Harrowing of Hell, in which Christ, having shattered the gates of hell, extends his right hand to Adam, who kneels on the left side. Eve is kneeling on the right side; kings, prophets and the Old Testament patriarchs are standing in the background, which can be seen on the displayed icon. The icon was created in the sphere of Moscow's Old Believers or by imitators copying the Moscow products. Teresa Bagińska-Żurawska https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9243-3967