LUTSK – In 1998 the Volynian Icon Museum, the only establishment of this sort in Ukraine, last published a printed review of its exhibits. Yet that minor publication cannot compare to the current album. For a long time Volynian museum scholars dreamed of such a luxurious book. The more so that visitors, from presidents to pilgrims from Paraguay and Australia, wanted to purchase precisely such a memento, as the Volynian Icon Museum’s exhibits are indeed unique. It would be unjust to keep such an album for the museum alone, it should be shown and boasted about, said the head of the Volyn Regional State Administration Borys Klimchuk at the album’s presentation, acting there primarily as a member of the board of the regional charitable foundation Native Volyn, the foundation which financed the publication.
It took three years to implement the idea. The photo album was a joint work of Volyn museum scholars and the company Faktoria’s personnel, the latter being responsible for preparing the book for print. The album includes 92 illustrations picturing the museum’s exhibits. These are not only icons but also other works of religious art, abundant in the museum’s storage rooms. It opens with the photo of the icon of Our Lady of Chelm, a work of Byzantine art dating from the 11th century and revered as miraculous by Christendom. The Roman Catholic Ordinary Bishop of Lutsk Markian Trofimiak said that the album would present not only the unique museum, but also demonstrate the importance of icons, our ancestors’ materialized faith in God.
The director of the Volynian Icon Museum Tetiana Yelysieieva says that her institution is the only one in Ukraine to be visited by pilgrims and religious processions come to pray to the miraculous icon of Our Lady of Chelm. Quite often, the museum’s visitors are seen kneeling before some icon and praying…
That’s why the Volynian museum scholars dream to see Volynian-style icons return to the region’s shrines, in the state in which the ancient masters painted them, instead of the now-traditional generic Orthodox style.
