Icon "Resurrection of the Lord"

The icon has a central field. Around the four sides of the central field are scenes, left to right: "The Nativity of the Mother of God," "The Presentation of the Mother of God in the Temple," "The Annunciation of the Mother of God," "The Nativity of Christ," "The Presentation of the Lord," "The Theophany of the Lord," "The Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem," "The Transfiguration of the Lord"; "The Ascension of the Lord," "The Most Holy Trinity," "The Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord," "The Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos." The iconography of the central field: two scenes depicting Christ. Above, the scene of Christ's Resurrection; below, in a larger scale, the scene of Christ's Descent into Hell. Christ is surrounded by a circle of Old Testament Jewish prophets, kings, Adam, and Eve. His figure is shown full-length within an oval golden mandorla with transverse bands. Golden tones predominate in the painting (background, margins, halos, garments). On the background, margins, and halos are inscriptions in black paint, in Church Slavonic. The icon is painted on a panel made of two pieces, joined by two end battens.

The icon was seized at the Boryspil customs post. It entered the museum's holdings by decision of the State Customs Committee of Ukraine and the National Committee for the Return of Cultural Property to Ukraine under the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine in 1995.

Legend: the Resurrection of Christ is a symbol of Christ's victory over death, which brought humanity deliverance from the bondage of sin and opened the way to spiritual renewal.

The Evangelists left no description of the moment of the Resurrection itself, since no human being directly witnessed the event. For this reason, in Orthodox iconographic tradition, the Resurrection is conveyed through the image of the "Descent into Hell," grounded in Holy Scripture and Tradition. Jesus Christ, in the radiance of the mandorla, appears as the Victor, who has destroyed the gates of Hell and broken its chains. Stretching out his hands to Adam and Eve, he opens the way to the salvation of all humankind.

Traditionally, the central image of the Resurrection is surrounded by scenes of the Twelve Great Feasts — the twelve most important Christian feasts after Easter, connected with the earthly life of Jesus Christ and the Most Holy Theotokos.