Theotokos with Child Emmanuel, painted by Tamara Elchaninov, will be among the many types of icons displayed at St Vladimir’s Seminary campus October 4, 2008, as part of the Orthodox Education Day theme “Holy Icons, Sacred Arts.”

"Holy Icons and Sacred Arts" will adorn campus Education Day 2008

CRESTWOOD, NY — On Saturday, October 4, 2008, St Vladimir's Seminary will once again host its annual Orthodox Education Day, a day of "homecoming" for alumni, friends, and the general public, which this year features the theme "Holy Icons and Sacred Arts."

The campus-wide celebration will especially honor the holy icon-the early Christian art form uniquely and deeply associated with the worship and faith of the Orthodox Church, and one that has mesmerized poets, writers, and artists for centuries, and has inspired believers and non-believers alike.

Among the campus exhibits will be a magnificent, rare collection of fifteenth to twenty-first-century Russian icons from the Museum of Russian Icons in Clinton, Massachusetts. The museum houses more than 350 Russian icons, the largest collection of its kind in North America and one of the largest private collections outside of Russia; icons in the museum span six centuries, dating from the earliest periods of icon painting up to the present.

Keynote speaker will be Dr Vasileios Marinis, the Kallinikeion assistant professor of Byzantine Art in the Department of Art and the Center for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies at Queens College. Dr Marinis received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and holds degrees from the University of Athens, University of Paris I-Sorbonne, and Yale University. His research focuses on architecture and ritual in the Byzantine world and on Byzantine women, and his OED remarks will concentrate on iconography.

More information regarding the day’s schedule, icon exhibits, and icon workshops is available on our web pages devoted to Orthodox Education Day 2008.