My Start in Iconography

Arriving in Israel in 1999 I was a bit thrown. The place was so modern! Tall office blocks, modern hotels, tarmac streets, taxis, and shops selling tourist's trinkets all left the world I thought I had come to experience - the world of Jesus - seemingly far, far away. The nearest I got was the sea of Galilee where at least the hills remained largely undeveloped and I could catch a glimpse of the place as Jesus would Himself have once seen it. Yet I left wanting more, a chance to stop, to pray, to reach down into the earth and touch the holiness of the place which had seemed tantalisingly just beyond my grasp.

Eventually, nearly a decade later, I returned in 2008 and this time for an extended stay. I had come this time, not as a pilgrim, but as a volunteer  iconographer, to help restore the interior of the Orthodox Church of St Nicholas in a small town just across from Bethlehem.

The church dated from 1925, and no one was very clear about what was on the site before. However, the main reason for the church was the cave in the crypt where St Nicholas reputedly lived during his extended pilgrimage to the Holy Land at the end of the 3^rd century. However, apart from the cave the only sign of the ancient past was a fragment of Byzantine mosaic floor.

Tags: iconography orthodox church of st. nicholas bethlehe beit jala