Saint Irini Chrysovalantou - Silver icon on wood, locally gilded - Mount Athos

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A closer look at Saint Irini Chrysovalantou - Silver icon on wood, locally gilded - Mount Athos from Christianity Art. Listed in Wall reliefs. Materials: Silver, Gold, Wood. Image crafted on canvas on wood, with silver coating and local gilding. The figure comes with a free stand. Saint Irini Chrysovalantou Saint Irini was Abbess of Chrysovalanto Monastery in the second half of the 9th century. and at the beginning of the 10th c. In her younger years the 100-year period of Iconoclasm was reaching its final phase. Her father was the patrician Philaretos the Cappadocian, a favorite of the emperor Theophilos and a confidant of his wife Theodora. In the winter of 843AD, the empress Theodora, widow and commissioner of her son Michael III, invited Philaretos to Constantinople and asked him for his daughter in order to marry her to her son Michael. 15-year-old Irini was not moved by the offer because she had longed for a solitary life since she was little. Despite her father's opposition, refusing to marry a second time and after a serious illness, his objections were overcome and he led her to the monastery of Chrysovalantou, where she remained as a nun and Abbess until the age of 104. Her reputation for the holy way she led her life led multitudes of people to the pilgrimage of her sanctuary. The original icon, a source of inspiration for the hagiographer, is located in the Holy Monastery of the neophanes Saints Raphael, Nikolaos & Irene, in Mytilini.