Η Θεοτόκος ως Σκηνή του Μαρτυρίου με τις προεικονίσεις και ο Μελισμός στην αψίδα της Κόκκινης Παναγιάς στην Κόνιτσα

Abstract

This paper discusses an original and unique artistic composition of the late fourteenth-early fifteenth century. In the conch of the apse the Virgin is depicted as Tabernacle with the Prefigurations and the Prophets. In the semicircle the Melismos appears twice: in the first the eucharistic Christ is represented as a dead mature man, and in the second as a living infant ‘melismenos’ in the hands of Basil the Great, who holds a lance. The whole composition is inspired from St Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews, which is read on the feast day of the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, immediately after the Great Entry and before the Gospel’s lection.