New for April 2022

April 1, 2022

New for April 2022

Western Christians celebrate Easter on April 17th and Eastern Christians mark the holiday on April 24th. Millions of the faithful living in Ukraine at the border where the Latin and Byzantine worlds meet will mark Resurrection Sunday this year in cities under siege and in towns reduced to rubble, many of them mourning love ones who have died in the Russian invasion. We bring them to mind this month as we contemplate three Easter-themed images in The Resurrection of Christ gallery in The Life of Christ section by a trio of West Ukrainian women icon-makers. They are at the forefront of a renaissance of Ukrainian Greek Catholic culture, long suppressed by the Communist regime, which came about when Ukraine became an independent nation in 1991. The artistic traditions of East and West merge (left) in Natalya Rusetska's icon of the Resurrection. The image of Christ rising from the grave is a Latin Christian motif; the stylized form of his body reflects the mystical traditions of East Orthodoxy. Ulyana Tomkevych shows Doubting Thomas touching the wounds of the Resurrected Christ in a scene that is neither ultramodern nor a reproduction on centuries-old Ukrainian icons but a blend of both styles. Traditional Byzantine forms combine with Cubist geometrics and an Art Deco elegance of line in the third icon from Khrystyna Kvyk depicting the Risen Christ's encounter with two disciples on the road to Emmaus . Pray for the peace of Ukraine! (John Kohan)