THE FRIENDS OF MOUNT ATHOS BOOK REVIEWS

© 2000

Enkolpia of the Holy and Great Monastery of Vatopaidi. By Yota Oikonomaki-Papadopoulou, Brigitte Pitarakis, and Karia Loverdou-Tsigarida. Mount Athos: Vatopaidi Monastery, 2000. 395 pages. 310 colour illustrations. ISBN 960-7735-15-3. Price h/b 20,000 drachmas (including airmail postage).

The word ‘enkolpion’ is generally used of an object with Christian significance, worn around the neck, literally ‘on the breast’. Historically, enkolpia have been produced in a whole range of materials, including stone, wood, ivory, bone, horn, metal, and glass and could be finished with paint, gilding, enamel, or niello and decorated with gems and pearls. They have ranged from flat plaques, usually with holy figures, scenes or inscriptions, or a combination of these, to more complex containers for holy relics. The wearer is afforded protection by means of their imagery and inscriptions or, in the case of reliquaries, by their contents.

Enkolpia are known to have been in use from the fourth century onwards and have been found throughout Byzantium and the post-Byzantine world. They are very personal possessions, frequently gifts, and most of those in the Vatopedi Monastery on Mount Athos have doubtless been given by visitors. A newly published catalogue raisonné of the enkolpia in the possession of the monastery contains 150 items, each one superbly illustrated with colour photographs by Pantelis Magoulas and accompanied by a full description and discussion in Greek.

The oldest example at Vatopedi is dated to the sixth or the seventh century. It is a flat brass pendant cross with twin disks at the end of each of its four arms, rather crudely cast and with somewhat haphazard ring-and-dot ornament. It afforded protection to its wearer by its symbolism. Four other brass crosses are in two parts, hinged to open, the relics they contained protecting the wearer; two of the examples are more or less complete, while two have each lost one of their halves. The dating of these reliquary-crosses to the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries is the result of admirable background reading and research: until quite recently, such artefacts were invariably, but mistakenly, dated to the sixth and seventh centuries.

The most modern enkolpia in the catalogue were made in the nineteenth century. Noteworthy among these is a group of parcel-gilt and nielloed pendants and lockets engraved with representations of the Holy Trinity, the Hodigitria, and other images of veneration.

Between the earliest and the most modern examples in the collection are many fascinating enkolpia, and it is difficult to choose which to highlight. Important groups include medieval steatite icons mounted as pendants, crosses of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries intricately carved from box and other hardwoods and usually set into precious-metal mounts, and little Russian icons of much the same date, cast in brass and frequently enamelled, often in the form of diptychs or triptychs. All of these groups are well researched and documented, and their treatment in the catalogue provides an extremely valuable service for antiquarians and museum curators.

Individual ‘star’ items include a glass ‘cameo’ of the Crucifixion, mass-produced in Venice in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade and here set as a pendant in a gilt mount; also a late twelfth- or early thirteenth-century cloisonné enamel image of Christ Emanuel surrounded by the Evangelist symbols. Christ displays the first letters, in Greek, of ‘Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us’ (Isaiah 25:9), and, on the reverse of the enkolpion, round a seal-stone depicting the Mother of God with the infant Christ, is the inscription: ‘On my breast for my bodily health I carry thee who chastely carries the Word.’

The catalogue provides a summary description of each enkolpion and suggests its date. There follows a detailed description and discussion, together with a list of works in which the enkolpion in question has been published (most have not previously appeared in print). The catalogue entries, shared between Yota Oikonomaki-Papadopoulou, Brigitte Pitarakis, and Katia Loverdou-Tsigarida, are admirably precise and succinct, and yet the reader usually has the impression that all aspects have been considered. This is all the more remarkable, since the authors – unable, of course, to visit the Holy Mountain – had to work from descriptions prepared by one of the editors, Stelios Papadopoulos, and from detailed colour photographs. The only casualty might just possibly be the identification of one or two of the semi-precious stones.

Introductory matter provides an excellent survey of the subject; the end-matter comprises a bibliography of works in Greek and one of publications in other languages, notes on the introductory texts, notes on the catalogue entries, and an index. The bibliographies are impressive, the notes are well thought out and supportive, and the index is immensely practical. As a whole the catalogue is well designed and a pleasure to use, although it would have been more convenient if the relevant notes had been incorporated in the individual catalogue entries. The binding, unfortunately, is not of the quality of the rest of the book: the review copy became a loose-leaf folder in a matter of days.

The Vatopedi enkolpia constitute an important collection, highly individual yet at the same time broadly representative of any large assemblage of these fascinating objects. The catalogue provides an excellent guide to the collection itself and an important reference-work on the whole subject of enkolpia. An English version is to be published soon.

DAVID BUCKTON

Courtauld Institute of Art, London