On the wall painting of three wooden churches from Maramureș (Borșa, Ieud Deal and Poienile Izei) there were depicted images of several saints related to the political or ecclesiastical history of  Kyiv: Anthony and Theodosius from Kyiv-Pecherska Lavra, other holy monks of the same Lavra, medieval Kyivan Rus saints: cneaz apostle Vladimir, Jona metropolitan of Moscow, Alexios metropolitan of Russia and Peter metropolitan of Kyiv. The aim of this article is to shed some light on the transfer paths of the images in the iconographic program from the aforementioned churches. I also illuminate the alleged conecting links between Maramureș and  Kyiv, that stood behind. The presence of the aforementioned images in the iconographic program of the wooden churches indicates some ties between the village communities and the Kyivan cultural, artistic and ecclesiastic environment that determined the transfer and the reception of the images in the local iconography. I also hypothesise on the identity of some Kyivan saints depicted in the aforementioned churches. The temporal range of the study is the 18^th century, a period of time when all the three churches were painted.

[1] An icon depicting “Metropolitan Alexios Surrounded by Hagiographic Scenes” was painted by Dionysios at the end of the fifteenth century for the Dormition Cathedral in Kremlin; today it is part of the Tretyakov Gallery’s collection in Moscow. M. V. Alpatov, Early Russian Icon Painting (Moscow: ISKUSSTVO, 1978), 150. Nikodim Pavlovich Kondakov, Icons (New York: Parkstone Press International), 151, fig. 103.

[2] The icon, which is 67 x 42 cm, was attributed to Alimpios, an iconographer from Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. Today it forms part of the collection of the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. Icoane [Icons], (Oradea: Aquila ’93, 2007), 28, 33; Kondakov, Icons, 45, fig. 31.

[3] Michał Janocha, “Iconografia świętych ojców ruskiego monastycyzmu” [Iconography of the Holy Fathers of Ruthenian Monasticism], in Alicia Nowak and A. Gronek, eds., Rola monasterów w kształtowaniu kultury ukraińskej w wiekach XI-XX [The Role of the Monasteries in Shaping Ukrainian Culture in the 11^th-20^th Centuries] (Kraców: Wydawnictwo Szwajpold Fiol, 2012), 13-42.

[4] Ibid., 15-16.

[5] Роксолана Косів [Roksolana Kosiv], ““Господи нехай буде благословення Твоє на цьому місці”: іконографія та причини популярності св. Антонія і Теодосія Печерських на творах риботицьких майстрів 1670–1750-х рр.” [“Lord, Let Your Blessing Be on This Place”: Iconography and the Reasons for the Popularity of St Anthony and St Theodosius of Pechersk on the Icons of 1670-1750s by the Rybotychi Masters”], in Вісник Львівської національної академії мистецтв, Проблеми Пластичного та Ужиткового Мистецтва 36 (2018): 96.

[6] Waldemar Deluga, “Ukrainian Prints from the Lavra Pecerska Monastery in Kiev (17^th and 18^th Centuries),” Apulum. Series Historia et Patrimonium 59 (2013):  22-23.

[7] G. P. Fedotov, The Russian Religious Mind: Kievan Christianity, the Tenth to the Thirteenth Centuries, vol. I (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1966), 110-111.

[8] Files no. 1168 and no. 1169 for the church of Borșa, fund Direcția Monumentelor Istorice [Directorate of Historical Monuments, henceforth cited as DHM], Institutul Național al Patrimoniului archive [National Institute of Heritage, henceforth cited as NIH], Bucharest.

[9] The restoration file of the church from Borșa, fund Programul Național de Restaurare [National Program for Restoration, henceforth cited as NPR], NIH archive: building restoration and painting conservation/restoration (there is no inventory number). The restoration was carried out by conservators Cornelia and Dinu Săvescu. The painting was investigated by art historian Ana Dobjanschi.

[10] Ibid., Painting conservation and restoration, 3.

[11] Paul Bushkovitch, Religion and Society in Russia: Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 74-77, 104.

[12] They were painted on all types of icons (both wooden icons and metal ones). Mirosław Piotr Kruk, “Dewocjionalia Rosyskie (Moskiewskie) z Pól Bitewnych muzeah Polskich” [Russian (Moscow) Devotional Objects from Battlefields in Polish Museums], in А. Е. Мусин [A. E. Musin] and О. А. Щеглова [O. A. Scheglova], eds., В камне и в бронзе. Сборник статей в честь Анны Песковой [In Stone and Bronze. Essays Presented in Honour of Anna Peskova] (St Petersburg: Russian Academy of Science, Institute for the History of Material Culture, 2017) [Proceedings, vol. XLVIII]), 241-252.

[13] I. D. Ștefănescu, in Arta veche a Maramureșului [The Old Art of Maramureș] (Bucharest: Meridiane, 1968), 130, suggests that Peter Mohyla was represented due to his writings in defence of Orthodoxy, and that the depiction of other saints reflected the ties between Maramureș, Moldavia and Russia; Anca Bratu, Pictura murală maramureșeană: meșteri zugravi și interferențe stilistice [Mural Painting of Maramureș: Masters and Stylistic Interference], ed. by Ana Bârcă (Bucharest: Editura ACS, 2015), 133, footnote 147.

[14] Al. Cziple, “Documente privitoare la Episcopia de Maramureș” [Documents Regarding the Diocese of Maramureș], AARMSI, II series, XXXVIII (1916), 288-289. Huszt, March 9, 1607, Valentin Drugeth de Hamonna was asked by Maramureș County and by the Moldavian hospodar, Simeon, to return the Peri monastery to the Romanian bishop.

[15] Ioana Feodorov, “La Kiev, pe urmele portretelor mitropolitului Petru Movilă” [In Kiev, Following the Portraits of Metropolitan Peter Mohyla], in Constantin Manolache, ed., Istorie și Cultură. In honorem academician Andrei Eșanu [History and Culture. In honorem of the Academician Andrei Eșanu] (Chișinău: Biblioteca Științifică, Secția Editorial-Poligrafică, 2018), 718. She made a record of the portraits of Peter Mohyla made between seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. She searched in the Kyivan churches and monasteries (Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, Berestovo Monastery), church books (manuscripts and printed books), Kyivan museums, other church collections.

[16] Vera Tchentsova, “Pour un corpus des inscriptions grecque de l’église Saint-Sauveur de Berestovo,” Museikon 1 (2017) : 79.

[17] Waldemar Deluga, “Portraits de la famille Movilă du XVII^e siècle,” RRH-BA 31 (1994): 82; Tchentsova, “Pour un corpus,” 79.

[18] Deluga, “Portraits de la famille Movilă,” 73-85.

[19] Ibid., 82-83.

[20] Serhii Plokhy, La porțile Europei. O istorie a Ucrainei [The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine] (Bucharest: Editura Trei, 2018), 124-125.

[21] Mirosław Piotr Kruk, Zachodnioruskie ikony Matki Boskiej z Dzieciątkiem w wieku XV-XVI [West Russian Icons of the Mother of God with the Child in the Fifteenth - Sixteenth Centuries] (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, 2000), 38.

[22] The koukoulion is a piece of monastic headdress, like a hood, round on top in Russian/ Ukrainian tradition.

[23] Paul de Aleppo, Jurnal de călătorie. Siria, Constantinopol, Moldova, Valahia și Țara Cazacilor [Journal Travel. Syria, Constantinople, Moldavia, Wallachia and the Land of the Cossacks], ed. by Ioana Feodorov (Brăila: Editura Istros a Muzeului Brăilei Carol I, 2020), 466-571.

[24] Ibid., 513-514.

[25] The Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery, ed. by Omeljan Pritsak (Harvard University Press for the Ukrainian Research Institute of Harvard University, 1989).

[26] Feodorov, “La Kiev,” 713.

[27] Kosiv, “Господи нехай буде,” 93-107.

[28] Bushkovitch, Religion and Society, 75-78 and 102.

[29] Ibid., 76-77.

[30] Ibid., 76.

[31] Kosiv, “Господи нехай буде,” 94.

[32] Some of them were published, such as the icons from the collection of the History Museum in Sanok: Katarzyna Winnicka, Ikony z XVII wieku w Muzeum Historycznym w Sanoku. Katalog Zbiorow [Icons from the Seventeenth Century in the Historical Museum in Sanok. Collection Catalog], vol. III (Sanok, 2018), 24, cat. no. 12, seventeenth-century icons from Stańkowa (inv. no. MHS/S/3506); 63, cat. no. 59, seventeenth-century icon from Owczary (inv. no. MHS/S/4467); 74, cat. no. 74, seventeenth-century icon from Dobra Szlachecka (inv. no. MHS/S/4162); 76, cat. no. 79, seventeenth-century icon from Ulucz (inv. no. MHS/S/3715) and cat. no. 82, seventeenth-century icon from Mików (inv. no. MHS/S/3795). An icon from the Greek-Catholic religious collection in Nyiregyháza has been published in Bernadett Puskás, “Icônes de la collection gréco-catholique d’art religieux de Nyiregyháza,” Apulum. Series Historia et Patrimonium 51 (2014), 311, fig. 2, seventeenth-century icon from Tolcsva (inv. no. 2010.165). Roksolana Kosiv studied and published some icons painted in the 1750s in the Rybotycze centre: “Icons from Wola Wyżna and Swiątkowa Mała Churches of the Master Yakiv from Rybotycze 1670-1680-s,” Series Byzantina XVII (2019): 41-58; Eadem, “Творчість ікономаляра Івана Крулицького в контексті діяльності риботицького осередку (1700-ті рр.)” [Works of Art by Ivan Krulytskyy in the Context of the Activity of the Icon Painting Centre in Rybotycze (1700’s)], ВІСНИК, Історія мистецтва 5 (2017): 89. Others are exposed, for example the eighteenth-century icon at the Archdiocesan Museum in Przemyšl (inv. no. MAPrz la/5523).

[33] Lilya Berezhnaya, “Topography of Salvation: ‘The New Jerusalem’ in Ruthenian Polemical Literature (End of the Sixteenth - Beginning of the Seventeenth Century),” in D. Frick, S. Rohdewald, S. Wiederkehr, eds., Lithuania and Ruthenia. Studies of a Transcultural Communication Zone (15^th-18^th Centuries) [Research on Eastern European History] (Wiesbaden: Harassowitz Verlag, 2007), 246-271.

[34] Alexandru Baboș, “Mărturii istorice adunate în biserica de lemn din Oncești cu rezonanțe în arhitectura, arta și limba Țării Maramureșului” [Historical Evidence Gathered in the Wooden Church from Oncești with Echoes in Architecture, Art and the Language of the Land of Maramureș], AMMar. 15 (2019): 143.

[35] Alexandru Baboș and Mihai Covaci, “Raport de cercetare al unor picturi din bisericile de lemn maramureșene” [Research Report on Some Paintings of the Wooden Churches from Maramureș], AMMar. 16 (2020): 612.

[36] Viorel Ciubotă, Vasile Rus et al., eds., Episcopia greco-catolică de Mukachevo. Documente, [Greek-Catholique Diocese of Mukachevo. Documents] vol. II (Satu Mare: Editura Muzeului Sătmărean, 2012), 86, doc. no. 39: A pilgrimage certificate issued in 1740 by the Archimandrite of the Lavra, Timothy, preserved in the State Archives of Transcarpathia, fund 64, opis 1, file 233, f. 1.

[37] Regarding Kyiv as the New Jerusalem, see Berezhnaya, “Topography of Salvation;” Eadem, “His Foundation is in the Holy Mountains. Some Remarks on the New Jerusalem Symbolism in the Age of Mazepa,” Series Byzantina 4 (2006): 71-82.

[38] Livia Ardelean, “Câteva date privind epidemiile din Maramureș în secolele XVI-XVIII” [Some Datas on Epidemics in Maramureș in the seventeenth - eighteenth Centuries], RAM 10 (2017): 41-70.

[39] Deluga, “Ukrainian Prints,” 25-26; Idem, Grafika z kręgu Ławry Pieczarskij i Akademii Mohylańskiej XVII i XVIII wieku [Graphics from the Cicle of Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra and Mohyla Academy of the 17^th and 18^th Centuries] (Kraków: Collegium Columbianum, 2003).

[40] В. А. Ткачук [V. A. Tkachuk], “Українські православні антимінси XVII-XVIII ст.: система функціонування та смислове навантаження” [Ukrainian Orthodox Antimensions of 17-18^th C.: System of Their Functioning and Meaning] (PhD Diss., Taras Shevchenko National University Kyiv, Kyiv, 2018), 8.

[41] Ibid., 9.

[42] Waldemar Deluga’s study “Les gravures orthodoxes et gréco-catholique de la République Polonaise des XVII^e et XVIII^e siècles,” in Revue des Études Slaves LXVI, no. 2 (1994): 167-284, offers rich information about the engravers who worked in Lvov and Kyiv and also about the history of the printing house.

[43] Muriel Hepell, Introduction to The Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery, XXXV; Deluga, “Les gravures orthodoxes et gréco-catholique”, 272-274.

[44] Volodymyr Stasenko, Christ and the Virgin in the Woodcuts of the Seventeenth Century Galician Cyrillic-Printed Books: Peculiarities of Their Portrayal and Interpretation (Kyiv: Ukrainian Academy Printing House, 2003).

[45] Kosiv, “Господи нехай буде,” 96.

[46] Stasenko, Christ and the Virgin, 36.

[47] They were brought to Maramureș, but it is possible they have vanished or they are unknown by scholars (nobody has yet an inventory of the religious books circulating in Maramureș that were printed outside the Romanian territories). A document issued in 1757, preserved in the State Archives of Transcarpathia, mentioned that the Bishop of Mukachevo had to prevent religious books from Moscow entering Maramureș. The document was published by Viorel Ciubotă, Vasile Rus et al., eds., Episcopia greco-catolică de Mukachevo. Documente, vol. III (Satu Mare: Editura Muzeului Sătmărean, 2015), 336-337, doc. no. 57.

[48] Mirosław Piotr Kruk’s study “The Lvov ‘Oktoih’ of 1630 in the collection of the Jagellonian Library in Cracow,” in Series Byzantina 1(2003): 128, analysed the printed book, emphasising all the links (cultural and political) between the Ruthenian, Polish and Moldavian lands.

Fig. 1. Saint Theodosius of the Kyivan Monastery of the Caves, Borșa, 1775, unknown master, full image and detail of the inscription. Photo: Dumitrița D. Filip.

Fig. 2. Unknown saint, Borșa, 1775, unknown master, full image and detail of the inscription. Photo: Dumitrița D. Filip.

Fig. 3. Miraculous scene, altar, western wall, Borșa, 1775, unknown master. Photo: Dumitrița D. Filip.

Figs. 4-5. The 12 monks, southern and northern wall, altar, Poienile Izei, 1794, master Gheorghe Plohod. Photo: Dumitrița D. Filip.

Figs. 6-7. Peter Metropolitan of Kyiv, and Knyaz Apostle Vladimir, altar, Ieud Deal, 1782, master Alexander Ponehalski. Photo: Dumitrița D. Filip.

Figs. 8-9. Jonah Metropolitan of Moscow, and Alexei Metropolitan of Russia, altar, Ieud Deal, 1782, master Alexander Ponehalski. Photo: Dumitrița D. Filip.

Fig. 9. Alexei Metropolitan of Russia, altar, Ieud Deal, 1782, master Alexander Ponehalski. Photo: Dumitrița D. Filip.

Fig. 10. Theotokos flanked by holy monks from Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, Borșa, 1775, unknown master. Photo: Dumitrița D. Filip.

Fig. 11. Portrait of Peter Mohyla, Berestovo. Photo: Ana Dumitran.

Fig. 12. Portrait of Ieremia Movilă, Sucevița. Photo: Ana Dumitran.

Fig. 13. Portrait of Metropolitan Gheorghe Movilă, Sucevița. Photo: Ana Dumitran.