Unknown Russian artist

You Are a Priest Forever (Ты еси иерей во век), c.1600, Egg tempera on wood, Ikonen-Museum, Recklinghausen; The Picture Art Collection / Alamy Stock Photo

Ministering in the Heavens

Commentary by Victoria Emily Jones

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This icon from early seventeenth-century Russia is of the rare and enigmatic ‘You Are a Priest Forever’ type, its name taken from Hebrews 7:17. (It is not to be confused with Christ the Great High Priest / Great Hierarch; see an example from 1702, held in the Alexander Nevsky Crypt Museum in Sofia, Bulgaria.) It portrays the self-offering of Christ as high priest, an act that slays death forever.

Though the earthly reality of the Crucifixion is signalled by the hill of Golgotha at the foot of the cross, the iconographer relocates the event from outside Jerusalem to the heavenly realm, emphasizing its cosmic import and Christ’s exaltation, for he is ‘seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister in the sanctuary and the true tent which is set up not by man but by the Lord’ (Hebrews 8:1–2). Through the cross, he has penetrated the veil into the very presence of God and gives us the same access.

Christ’s crucified body is enfolded by the wings of a white seraph—an iconography adapted from Western depictions of the stigmatization of Saint Francis (Kriza 2016: 116)—and flanked by two red seraphs. An Orthodox commentary known as On the Ancient of Days, which survives in a late sixteenth-century manuscript, states that the three seraphs here symbolize Christ’s soul (Kriza 2024: 259)—but they surely also evoke visionary descriptions from Scripture of the throne of God (Isaiah 6; Revelation 4).

Christ is represented, symbolically, twice more in the icon: as a youthful, fiery red warrior-king holding a sword that destroys the works of the devil, and as ‘a priest’ standing in ‘the power of an indestructible life … holy, blameless, unstained, ... exalted above the heavens … a Son who has been made perfect for ever’ (Hebrews 7:16, 26, 28).

The thrice-depicted Christ—priest, king, sacrifice—is enthroned inside a luminous rhombus backed by a red rectangle representing the heavens spread out like a curtain (Isaiah 40:22; Tradigo 2006: 231). In the four corners are the four living creatures of the Apocalypse, who sing ‘Holy, holy, holy’ (Revelation 4:6–8) to the sacrificial yet victorious Lamb who makes peace by his own blood.

 

References

Kriza, Ágnes. 2016. ‘The Russian Gnadenstuhl’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 79: 79–130

______. 2024. ‘“You are a Priest Forever”: An Anti-Heretical Mnemonic Icon’, in Enigma in Rus and Medieval Slavic Cultures, ed. By Ágnes Kriza with William F. Ryan and Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung, Sense, Matter, and Medium, vol. 8 (Berlin: De Gruyter)

Tradigo, Alfredo. 2006. Icons and Saints of the Eastern Orthodox Church, trans. by Stephen Sartarelli (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum)

See full exhibition for Hebrews 7–8

Hebrews 7–8

Revised Standard Version

Hebrews 7

7 For this Melchizʹedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him; 2and to him Abraham apportioned a tenth part of everything. He is first, by translation of his name, king of righteousness, and then he is also king of Salem, that is, king of peace. 3He is without father or mother or genealogy, and has neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God he continues a priest for ever.

4 See how great he is! Abraham the patriarch gave him a tithe of the spoils. 5And those descendants of Levi who receive the priestly office have a commandment in the law to take tithes from the people, that is, from their brethren, though these also are descended from Abraham. 6But this man who has not their genealogy received tithes from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises. 7It is beyond dispute that the inferior is blessed by the superior. 8Here tithes are received by mortal men; there, by one of whom it is testified that he lives. 9One might even say that Levi himself, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham, 10for he was still in the loins of his ancestor when Melchizʹedek met him.

11 Now if perfection had been attainable through the Levitʹical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizʹedek, rather than one named after the order of Aaron? 12For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well. 13For the one of whom these things are spoken belonged to another tribe, from which no one has ever served at the altar. 14For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, and in connection with that tribe Moses said nothing about priests.

15 This becomes even more evident when another priest arises in the likeness of Melchizʹedek, 16who has become a priest, not according to a legal requirement concerning bodily descent but by the power of an indestructible life. 17For it is witnessed of him,

“Thou art a priest for ever,

after the order of Melchizʹedek.”

18On the one hand, a former commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness 19(for the law made nothing perfect); on the other hand, a better hope is introduced, through which we draw near to God.

20 And it was not without an oath. 21Those who formerly became priests took their office without an oath, but this one was addressed with an oath,

“The Lord has sworn

and will not change his mind,

‘Thou art a priest for ever.’ ”

22This makes Jesus the surety of a better covenant.

23 The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office; 24but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues for ever. 25Consequently he is able for all time to save those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

26 For it was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, blameless, unstained, separated from sinners, exalted above the heavens. 27He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people; he did this once for all when he offered up himself. 28Indeed, the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect for ever.

8Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, 2a minister in the sanctuary and the true tent which is set up not by man but by the Lord. 3For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; hence it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. 4Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. 5They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary; for when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, “See that you make everything according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain.” 6But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry which is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. 7For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion for a second.

8 For he finds fault with them when he says:

“The days will come, says the Lord,

when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel

and with the house of Judah;

9not like the covenant that I made with their fathers

on the day when I took them by the hand

to lead them out of the land of Egypt;

for they did not continue in my covenant,

and so I paid no heed to them, says the Lord.

10This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel

after those days, says the Lord:

I will put my laws into their minds,

and write them on their hearts,

and I will be their God,

and they shall be my people.

11And they shall not teach every one his fellow

or every one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’

for all shall know me,

from the least of them to the greatest.

12For I will be merciful toward their iniquities,

and I will remember their sins no more.”

13In speaking of a new covenant he treats the first as obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

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