Wider than the heavens
Icon of the Virgin of the Sign (Platytera)
«The Lord himself will give you a sign: look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel» (Isaiah 7:14). The Mother of God is in prayer, arms raised; on her breast, in a circle of light, Christ Emmanuel blesses. It is the icon of the mystery of the Incarnation.
The names of this icon
- Mother of God of the Sign (in Russian Znamenie), from Isaiah's prophecy.
- Platytera, «wider than the heavens»: she who contained within herself the One whom the heavens cannot contain. Under this name she is painted in the apse of many Byzantine churches, above the altar.
- Blachernitissa, from the Blachernae shrine in Constantinople, where a praying Mother of God was venerated.
How to read the icon
Mary is shown frontally, half-length or standing, hands raised in the ancient gesture of prayer (orans). The circle on her breast, or clipeus, contains the Christ Child with the face of an adult: Emmanuel, «God with us». Two angels or seraphim often appear at the sides. In 1170 the besieged city of Novgorod attributed its deliverance to an icon of the Sign, which has since been one of the most venerated in Russia.
For whom
It is the icon of expectation: it is given to a pregnant woman, to a couple hoping for a child, for Advent. In a church or chapel it is the ideal image for the apse or the wall above the altar. Like every icon by Concetta Basile, it is fully gilded with 23¾ karat gold, with inscriptions in Greek or Latin, and is commissioned with an offering proportionate to the time and materials of the work.