Volyn priest's hideout and saved icon
The biography of a Byzantine relic shows where the line lies between a dry document and living folk tradition.
In late November 1996, the Lutsk restorer Anatoly Kvasyuk received a strange parcel. The owners brought an object wrapped in homespun towels and plastic film. When the protective layers were removed, the master found before him a badly damaged shield made of three cypress boards. The object looked pitiful. A thick layer of oil paint covered the ancient base.
The master later described his feeling of professional shock: "It was as if I had been doused with ice water." The cleaning began under the supervision of experts from the National Scientific Research Restoration Center. Removing the oil overpainting, the restorers reached the Byzantine writing.
Beneath the brushstrokes were revealed a reliquary casket, three gold plates, and one silver plate with cloisonné enamel. Tradition attributes the creation of this image to the Evangelist Luke. However, a rigorous analysis of the documents offers different options. Experts of the Volyn Local History Museum, on the basis of their research, dated the artifact to the end of the eleventh century. Some pointed to the end of the twelfth or the beginning of the thirteenth century. Both scholarly opinions confirm the Byzantine origin of the holy object, leaving the popular version in the realm of pious tradition.
The Silence of the Princely Chronicle
To separate reality from retelling, one must turn the pages of the Hypatian Codex. It describes in detail how Daniel Romanovich, Prince of Galicia-Volhynia, engaged in construction in Kholm and adorned the churches founded there. The chronicler notes the decoration of the local church in honor of Saint John Chrysostom: "And he adorned the icons that he had brought from Kiev with precious stones and golden beads." Later, under the year 1260, the text mentions a great church in honor of the Most Holy Theotokos.
The chronicle text tells in detail of the massive fire in Kholm in 1259, which began through the carelessness of a local woman. However, the ancient manuscript does not mention the Kholm Icon with a single word. The vivid story of how enemy soldiers cast the holy object to the ground, and the faithful found it only a century later beneath a heap of construction debris, belongs to popular legend. The written sources of the thirteenth century are silent on this matter.
The Books of the Uniate Bishop
The holy object was remembered only in the Early Modern era. In 1596, Dionysius Zbirujski, Bishop of Kholm, accepted the Union. The cathedral church passed into the hands of the Greek Catholic administration, which needed to strengthen the authority of the ancient center.
The task was taken up by the Uniate Bishop Jacob Susza, a member of the Basilian order. He wrote a detailed work about the local relic, which went through three editions. The book was titled "The Risen Phoenix." The author admitted in the preface that he had no reliable information about the first centuries of the icon's existence.
Orthodox authors also collected information about the holy object. In December 1665, the collection "The New Heaven" by Ioannikios (Galyatovsky) was published in Lviv. The book contained hundreds of descriptions of miraculous events that occurred through icons, including Kholm materials.
The authority of the shrine was strengthened by Pope Clement XIII, who in January 1765 signed a decree for the coronation of the icon. The solemn services with the placing of the crowns took place in September 1765 and lasted four days. However, the confessional fate of the relic took yet another turn: in 1875 the Chełm Eparchy converted to Orthodoxy, and the ancient cathedral, together with the icon, returned to the bosom of the Orthodox Church.
The Divided Shield
The twentieth century created a real historical detective story for the relic. In 1915, when the front of the First World War was approaching the region, the icon was evacuated to Moscow. In 1918 it was transferred to a monastery in Kyiv.
In the late 1920s, a campaign to confiscate church property unfolded in Kyiv. Requisitioners tore the precious oklad from the shrine. To save the ancient painting from confiscation and destruction, the faithful took a desperate step: the three cypress boards were separated and hidden with different people.
Only in the autumn of 1943, with the participation of Archbishop Hilarion (Ohienko), were the preserved fragments successfully reunited and solemnly brought back into the Chełm cathedral.
The Hiding Places of the Korobchuk Family
However, the peaceful period did not last long. In 1944 the deportation of the population began, and the family of the Chełm priest Gabriel Korobchuk took the shrine to Volyn. The priestly family preserved the relic for more than half a century. The icon was kept in ordinary rooms, transported in hiding places, and concealed from prying eyes.
Only in 2000 did the priest's daughter, Nadezhda Gorlitskaya, hand over the family treasure to the museum, on the condition that the object would remain permanently in Lutsk.
A Finale Thirteen Years in the Making
The restoration work began under the scientific supervision of experts from the National Research Restoration Center. The oil painting was restored by Anatoly Kvasyuk, and the enamel plates were cleaned by the master Viktor Golub. The extremely complex work was completed only by December 2009.
The final presentation of the restored icon had to be postponed for several weeks because of a flu quarantine declared in the city. The consecrated boards, which had survived fires, deportations and half a century of clandestine existence, calmly waited a little longer. Today the restored original of the Chełm Icon is kept in the Lutsk museum, while in Chełm there is its copy, painted in 1938.
