This is the Marian icon known as the Arakiotissa. It is a fresco painted in the 1100s in the Church of the Panagia tou Arakos at Lagoudera, on the island of Cyprus. Whenever you see that –issa ending on the title of a Marian icon, you know the title is Greek.
We need not deal with the long inscription at the lower sides of the image, but I do want to point out the first words at the upper left and right sides that identify the image. If we emend them a bit, they read:
Ἡ ΑΡΑΚΙΟΤΙCCα
HE ARAKIOTISSA
“The Arakiotissa.”
The second part of the title at top right is:
KAI ΚΕΧΑΡΙΤΩΜΕΝΗ
KAI KEKHARITOMENE
“AND FULL OF GRACE.”
So the whole title is: “The Arakiotissa and Full of Grace,” or better in English, “The Arakiotissa Full of Grace.” Kekharitomene means someone who has found favor (with God, in this case).”
You can see that the final -a is written much smaller and placed above the last C (“s”) in the inscription:
The Arakiotissa is a “Passion” Marian icon, meaning that the image is associated with the suffering and death by crucifixion of Jesus. We see that in the objects carried by the two angels, generally identified as Michael at left and Gabriel at right.
Here is Michael. He bears the spear and sponge on a reed from the Crucifixion:
And here is Gabriel, who bears the cross of the Crucifixion:
In the Italo-Cretan period, when icon painters on the island of Crete provided images both for Eastern Orthodox and Italian Roman Catholic buyers, a related Marian “Passion” image became popular, still with the two angels, but with the figures of Mary and the child Jesus in different positions than in the Arakiotissa. Here is an example of that type by the famous Cretan iconographer Andreas Ritzos (1421-1492):
Note that the angels are not depicted below their torsos, as though coming out of nowhere.
The identifying elements of this type are the two angels with the implements of the Passion, the child Jesus turning his head sharply over his left shoulder to look at the Archangel Gabriel, and the sandal that has come loose from his right foot and hangs slightly below it:
Many writers like to say that the sandal has become loose because of the child’s abrupt jerk of fear on seeing the cross, but it is perhaps just a pleasant painter’s conceit.
Some painters also included the crown of thorns with the cross.
One image of this type became famous in Rome after it was brought there at the end of the 1400s. Tradition says it was taken from Crete by an Italian merchant who stole it on the island, but then gave it to the San Matteo church in Rome. It became known as the “Madonna di San Matteo.” It disappeared from view when the French invaded Rome in 1812, and was gone for over forty years, but then was found in an Augustinian oratory in the 1860s. The rediscovered image caught the attention of Pope Pius IX, who had known it in San Matteo as a boy. He accorded it great importance, which led to its eventually becoming a well-known Catholic printed paper reproduction found on the walls of many Catholic homes. It was by then known as Nostra Signora del Perpetuo Soccorso in Italian, or in English “Our Lady of Perpetual Succor.” It is more commonly known in the United States as “Our Lady of Perpetual Help.” The image has undergone restoration twice, first in 1866 and again in 1940, which perhaps accounts for its rather bland present appearance.
In Greek Orthodoxy, the type is generally called either Παναγία του Πάθους — Panagia tou Pathous, meaning “All-Holy One of the Passion,” or Παναγία η Αμόλυντος — Panagia he Amolyntos — “All-Holy Pure One.”
Here is a 16th century Cretan example:
At upper left is the title given it:
It reads Ἡ ΠΑΝΜΑΚΑΡΙCΤΟC — HE PANMAKARISTOS.
It means “The All-Blessed.” In modern Greek it is pronounced “pammakARistos.” Notice the joining in the inscription of the letters A and N, of A and K, of A and P, and of C and T.
We see on the icon the usual MP ΘΥ abbreviation for Meter Theou — “Mother of God,” and ΙC ΧC for Iesous Khristos — “Jesus Christ.” But in addition, there is a longer inscription at right:
Ὁ ΤΟ ΧΑΙΡΕ ΠΡΙΝ ΤΗ ΠΑΝΑΓΝΩ — HE WHO “HAIL” PREVIOUSLY [to] THE ALL-PURE
ΜΗΝΥCΑC ΤΑ CΥΜΒΟΛΑ ΝΥΝ — DECLARED, THE SYMBOLS NOW
ΤΟΥ ΠΑΘΟΥC ΠΡΟΔΕΙΚΝΥΕΙ — OF THE PASSION SHOWS
Χ[ΡΙCΤΟ]C ΔΕ ΘΝΗΤΗΝ CΑΡΚΑ ΕΝ- — CHRIST AND MORTAL FLESH CL-
ΔΕΔΥΜΕΝΟC ΠΟΤΜΟΝ –OTHED DESTINY FEARS
ΔΕΔΟΙΚΩC ΔΕΙΛΙΑ ΤΑΥ- — TIMOROUSLY TH-
ΤΑ ΒΛΕΠΩΝ –EM SEEING
In normal English,
“He who previously declared “hail!” to the All-Pure One now shows the symbols of the Passion, and Christ, clothed in mortal flesh, timorously fears on seeing them.”
In other words, the angel Gabriel, who previously at the Annunciation had greeted Mary with the word khaire — “Hail” (Latin Ave), now displays the implements of the Passion to the child Christ, and he, being now incarnate in a human body subject to death, is meekly afraid on seeing them.
There is also an added inscription at the base of the icon:
ΔΕΥCΙC ΤΩΝ ΔΟΥΛΩΝ ΤΟΥ Θ[ΕΟ]Υ ΙΩΑΚΙΜ ΜΟΝΑΧΟΥ ΚΑΙ ΘΕΟΔΟΥΛΟΥ ΜΟΝΑΧΟΥ
DEYSIS/(Deisis) TON DOULON TOU THEOU IOAKIM MONAKHOU KAI THEODOULOU MONAKHOU
“Prayer/Supplication of the servants of God Ioakhim monk and Thedoulos monk.”
Occasionally Greek icons of the type are found showing Mary and Jesus in the usual positions, but without the angels and Passion implements.
It is not surprising that so popular an image also entered Russian Iconography. There the Russian version of the type is called the Strastnaya, meaning the “Passion” Mother of God. Its origin story relates that in the 17th century a women of the village of Palitsa named Ekaterina developed mental problems after her marriage. She was in this condition for some seven years, and became suicidal. She prayed to Mary, promising that if healed, she would enter a convent. She was healed, but then forgot about her vow.
Her illness returned. She took to her bed and again prayed to Mary. The door opened, and in came Mary, dressed in a robe ornamented with golden crosses. She asked Ekaterina why she had not fulfilled her vow, and told her to change her ways. But again Ekaterina did not do as she was told. Mary appeared to her two more times, and on the third appearance (that magic number found so often in such stories) Mary punished her by twisting her head and contorting her face and drooping her body Then Mary told her to go to Nizhniy-Novgorod, to an icon painter named Grigory, who had painted an icon of Mary. She was to tell Grigory of Mary’s appearances to her, and she was to provide seven silver coins to decorate the icon. Ekaterina did all this and was healed, and Mary promised that others who venerated the image would also be healed.
Grigory’s icon is then said to have worked other miracles, and in 1641 Tsar Mikhail Feodorovich had it brought to Moscow.
By the 19th century, the Strastnaya type had become widespread in Russian iconography. Though some Strastnaya examples include the detail of the loose sandal, more often the child Jesus is depicted without sandals, as in this image:
So the “Passion” type, by whatever name, is presently well-known in Both Eastern Orthodox iconography and in Roman Catholicism.
ICONS AND THEIR INTERPRETATION 