Zhdan Dementiev, 1630
Copy
Forefather Abraham is depicted full-length and is turned to the central image. He is dressed in a red robe and a green himation. He is holding an open scroll with his prophecy in his hand. The margins, the halo and the background of the icon are decorated with a copper cover with stamping.
Abraham is the Old Testament patriarch, the founding father of Jews and Arab tribes. He is the father of all believers thanks to the blessing given to Abraham by God. It is universally interpreted in the New Testament. The new stage of the ‘sacred history’ of the post-Flood period begins with Abraham. He lived in Chaldea near Babylonia, was rich, but didn’t have children. God chose righteous Abraham for keeping true faith through his descendants for the whole mankind. To protect him and his descendants from the native to him pagan tribes, God ordered Abraham to move to Canaan (now Palestine). There Abraham and his wife Sarah saw three men in the presence of God who told them that they would have a son. A year later, as had been prophesized, their son Isaac was born when Sarah was ninety years old and Abraham was one hundred years old.
The icon was restored by the team of I.P. Yaroslavtsev in the Inter-Regional Special Scientific Restoration Workshop of the Rosrestavratsiya Association in the Ministry of Culture of the RSFSR in 1978-1979.
