8278.
A SINDON or kind of Frontal, of Crimson Silk, on a linen or canvas lining, embroidered in silk and silver thread, with a large figure of our Lord dead, two standing angels, and, at each of its four corners, a half-length figure of an evangelist; the whole enclosed in a border inscribed with Sclavonic characters. Ruthenic work, middle of 17th century. 4 feet 6½ inches by 2 feet 10 inches.
In the centre of this curious ecclesiastical embroidery (for spreading outside the chancel, at the end of Holy Week, among the Greek,) our dead Lord, with the usual inscription, IC, XC, over Him, is figured lying full length, stretched out, as it were, upon a slab of stone which a sheet overspreads. His arms are at His sides as far as the elbows, where they bend so that His hands may be folded downward cross-wise upon His stomach, from which, to His knees, His loins are wrapped in a very full-folded cloth done in silver thread, but now nearly black from age. His skin is quite white, His hair and beard of a light brown colour, and His right side, His hands and feet are marked each with a blood-red wound; and the embroidery of His person is so managed as to display, in somewhat high relief, the hollows and elevations of the body’s surface; all around and beneath His head goes a nimbus marked inside with a cross very slightly pattee, the whole nicely diapered and once bright silver, but now quite black. Two nimbed angels, beardless and, in look, quite youthful, are standing, one at His head, the other at His feet, each, like the other, vested, as is the deacon at the present day, for mass, according to the Greek and Oriental rites; they wear the “chitonion” or alb, over that the “stoicharion” or dalmatic, and from the right—though it should have been from the left—shoulder falls the “orarion” or stole, upon which the Greek word “agios,” or holy, is repeated, just as a Greek deacon is shown in “Hierurgia,” p. 345; in his right hand each holds extended over our Lord, exactly as Greek deacons now do, at the altar, after the consecration of the Holy Eucharist, a long wand, at the end of which is a large round six-petaled flower-like ornament, having within it a cherub’s six-winged face; this is the holy fan, concerning which see the “Church of our Fathers,” iv. 197; and each has his left hand so raised up under his chin as to seemingly afford a rest for it. At each of the four corners of the frontal is the bust of an evangelist with a nimb about his head; in the upper left, “Agios o Theologos,” for so the Greeks still call St. John the Evangelist: in the lower left, St. Luke; in the upper right, St. Matthew; in the lower right, St. Mark; each is bearded, and the hair, whether on the head or chin, is shown in blue and white as of an aged man. While the heads and faces of all four evangelists are red, with the features distinguished by white lines, the angels have white faces and their hair is deep red with strokes in white to indicate the curly wavings of their locks. There are two crosses, rather pattee, done in silver thread, measuring 2½ inches, one above, the other below our Lord, in the middle of the ground, which is crimson, and wrought all over with gracefully twined flower-bearing branches; and each evangelist is shut in by a quarter-circle border charmingly worked with a wreath of leaves quite characteristic of our 13th century work. All the draperies, inscriptions, and ornamentation, now looking so black, were originally wrought in silver thread that is thus tarnished by age.
Among the liturgical rarities in this extensive and precious collection of needlework, not the least is the present Russo-Greek “sindon,” or ritual winding-sheet, used in a portion of the Eastern Church service on the Great Friday and Great Saturday, as the Orientals call our Good Friday and Holy Saturday.
The colour itself—purplish crimson—of the silk ground upon which our Lord’s dead body lies, as it were, outstretched upon the winding-sheet in the grave, is not without a symbolic meaning, for amongst the Greeks, up to a late period, of such a tint were invariably the garments and the stuffs employed on every occasion any wise connected with the dead, though now, like the Latins, the Muscovites at least use black for all such functions.
All around the four borders of this sindon are wrought in golden thread, now much tarnished, sentences of Greek, but written, as the practice is among the Sclaves, in the Cyrillian character, thus named from St. Cyrill, the monk, who invented that alphabet a thousand years ago, as one of the helps for himself and his brother St. Methodius, in teaching Christianity to the many tribes of the widely-spread Sclavonian people, as we noticed in our Introduction, § 5.
Beginning at the right-hand side, from that portion of the silk being somewhat torn, the words are not quite whole, but those that can be read, say thus:—“Pray for the servant of God, Nicolaus....and his children. Amen;” here, no doubt, we have the donor’s name, and the exact time itself of this pious gift was put down, but owing to the stuff being, at this place too, worn away, the date is somewhat obliterated, but seems to be the year 1645.
All the other sentences are borrowed from the Greek ritual-book known as the Ὡρολόγιον or Horologium, in the service for the afternoon on Good Friday and Holy Saturday. Along the lower border runs this “troparion,” or versicle:— Ὁ εὐσχήμων Ἰωσὴφ ἀπὸ τοῦ ξύλου καθελὼν τὸ ἄχραντόν σου Σῶμα, σινδόνι καθαρᾷ εἰλήσας καί ἀρώμασιν ἐν μνήματι καινῷ κηδεύσας ἀπεθέτο. “The comely Joseph (of Arimathea) having taken down from the wood (of the cross) the spotless body of Thee (O Jesus), and having wrapped it up in a clean winding-sheet together with aromatics, taking upon himself to afford it a becoming burial, laid it in a new grave.” Upon the left hand side comes this versicle:— Ταῖς μυρόφοροις γυναιξὶ παρὰ τὸ μνῆμα ἐπιστάς, ὁ Ἄγγελος ἐβόα: Τὰ μύρα τοῖς θνητοῖς ὑπάρχει ἁρμόδια, Χριστὸς δὲ διαφθορᾶς ἐδείχθη ἀλλότριος—Τροπάρια τοῦ Τριαδίου. Τῷ ἁγίῳ καὶ μεγάλῳ Σαββάτῳ. “Seeing at the grave the women who were carrying perfumes, the Angel cried out, ‘The ointments fitting (to be used in the burial) for mortal beings are lying here, but Christ, having undergone death, has shown Himself (again) after another form.’”
According to the rite followed by the Russians and Greeks, on the afternoon of Good Friday, as well as that of Holy Saturday, a sindon or liturgical winding-sheet, figured just like the one before us, is brought into the middle of the church, and placed outside the sanctuary, so that it may be easily venerated by all the people in turn. First come the clergy, making, as they slowly advance, many low and solemn bows, and bendings of the whole person. Reaching the sindon, each one kisses with great devotion the forehead of our Lord, and the place of the wounds in His side, His hands, and feet. Then follow the congregation, every one approaching in the same reverential manner, and going through the same ceremonial like the clergy; all this while are being sung, along with other versicles, the ones embroidered round this piece of needlework. But this is not all, at least in some provinces where the Greek ritual obtains. As soon as it is dark on Good Friday evening, upon a funeral bier is laid the figure of our Lord, either wrought in low relief, painted on wood or canvas, or shown in needlework like this sindon. Lifted up and borne forwards, it is surrounded by a crowd carrying lights. Then follow the priests vested in chasubles and the rest of the garments proper for mass; after them walk the lower clergy, and the lay-folks of the place come last. Then the procession goes all through and about the streets of the town, singing the cxviiith Psalm, the “Beati immaculati in via,” &c. of the Vulgate, or cxixth of the authorized version, between each verse of which is chanted a versicle from the Horologium. Everywhere the populace bow down as the bier comes by, and many times it halts that they may kiss the figure of our dead Saviour, whose image is overspread by the flowers sprinkled upon it as it is carried past, and afterwards these same flowers are eagerly sought for by the crowd, who set much store by them as the bringers of health to their bodies and a blessing on their homesteads all the after year. Now it should be observed that, even in the present piece, what is the real sindon or white linen winding-sheet shown open
and spread out quite flat beneath our Lord’s body, is put upon a mourning pall of red silk, which is worked all over with flowers, doubtless in allusion to this very custom of showering down upon it flowers as it is carried by.
Very like, in part, to the Greek ceremony, is the Latin rite still followed on Good Friday of kissing the crucifix as it lies upon a cushion on the steps going up to the altar, and known of old in England as creeping to the cross, the ritual for which among the Anglo-Saxons, as well as later, according to the use of Salisbury, may be seen in the “Church of Our Fathers,” t. iv. pp. 88, 241. Those who have travelled in the East, or in countries where the Greek rite is followed, may have observed that, almost always, the cupola of the larger churches is painted with the celebration of the Divine Liturgy; and among the crowd of personages therein shown are usually six angels reverently bearing one of these so-figured sindons, as was noticed in the Introduction, § 5.