Albania returns 20 stolen icons to neighbouring North Macedonia
Tirana, Albania AP Albania on Friday returned 20 icons to neighbouring North Macedonia that were stolen a decade ago, Albania’s Culture Ministry said. The return marked the final stretch on a long, 10-year road with “much inter-institutional and international cooperation,” said Albania’s Culture Minister Elva Margariti. It also showed Albania’s commitment to “the fight against […]
Religious art: Columbus artist’s dreadlocked, tattooed icons offer a fresh take on the saints
KATHRYN POST, of Religion News Service, reports on the work of US Catholic artist Gracie Morbitzer…
Quake-hit Mexico church with iconic Virgin image gets rehab
Mexico City, MexicoAP Under a white tent on the street outside Our Lady of the Angels on a recent Sunday, Rev Adrián Vázquez led parishioners seated in pews and plastic chairs in celebrating 10 o’clock Mass, flanked by piles of rubble from the sanctuary left there by a deadly earthquake nearly five years ago. […]
A 500-year-old icon looted from divided Cyprus repatriated
Nicosia, Cyprus AP A 500-year-old Orthodox icon that was looted from a church in the breakaway north of ethnically divided Cyprus has been returned to the island. The icon of the Enthroned Christ, which Cyprus’ Antiquities Department dates to around the end of the 15th century to the early 16th century, was presented at a […]
‘George Floyd’ pieta stolen from Catholic university after artist receives death threats
RNS A painting of Jesus and his mother, Mary, in which Jesus is seen by many to be painted in the likeness of George Floyd in response to his agonising death, was stolen from Catholic University of America Columbus Law School this week after a spate of conservative media attention and death threats directed at […]
Essay: The long history of how Jesus came to resemble a white European
Art historian ANNA SWARTWOOD HOUSE, in an article first published on The Conversation, looks at the history of portrayal of Christ as a white European…
Orthodox Church blasts posters of doctors as saints in Romania
Bucharest, RomaniaAP Romania’s Orthodox Church on Wednesday criticised a billboard campaign showing doctors dealing with the coronavirus epidemic as saints with halos shaped like the virus. According to a church spokesman, the “blasphemous” campaign created by international advertising agency McCann Worldgroup in conjunction with local artist Wanda Hutira is “a visual abuse of Christian iconography.” […]
COMMEMORATION: WITH HOLY OIL AND A PAINT ROLLER – COPTIC ICON PAINTERS WORK ON MEMORIAL TO VICTIMS OF ISLAMIC STATE
In an article first published by the World Council of Churches news service, KATJA DOROTHEA BUCK reports from Egypt on how icon painters are commemorating 21 martyrs killed on a Libyan beach by the so-called Islamic State in early 2015…
ORIGINS: THE ‘MEAT OF MANY USES’ KNOCKS UP 80 YEARS
Spam! Spam! Spam! DAVID ADAMS takes a look at the origins of the famous luncheon meat…