The Life and Icon of St. John the Evangelist

John the Evangelist is one of the twelve apostles who wrote works that included the New Testament: the Gospel, the three Epistles and the Book of Revelation. The saint is remembered in the Orthodox Church on May 8 (21). The icon of John the Theologian can look very diverse and identifies his image with events related to the deeds of the Lord and directly by the life of a saint. According to legend, John was the son of the fisherman Zaveda and Salome - the daughter of St. Joseph the Betrothed (the husband of the Theotokos). John and his brother Jacob, when they were fishing on the Lake of Genisareth (the Sea of Galilee), Jesus Christ called for him to follow him to make them "fishers of men."

John the Theologian: Life

Jesus called them "the sons of thunder". John, Peter and James witnessed the Transfiguration of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. The crucified Lord instructed the first of the three to take care of the Theotokos. The name of St. The apostle John is mentioned in all four Gospels and in the Acts of the Apostles.

After the Assumption of the Virgin, John, with his assistant and disciple Prokhor (apostle of seventy), went to Ephesus to preach there about Christ. On the way, many miracles were performed by John the Theologian: the life describes that he converted a huge number of people.

When Nero began a massive persecution of Christians, the apostle John was arrested, and in Rome he was sentenced to death. Miracles continued: at first the prisoner drank a bowl of poison and remained alive, and then he could not be boiled in a cauldron with boiling oil and then exiled to the island of Patmos, where the apostle lived for many years. There, thanks to his sermons, which were invariably accompanied by miracles, many residents became Christians.

The Gospel of John

On the island, John retired with Prokhor to a deserted mountain, where he stayed for three days, observing fasting and praying. And then suddenly thunder roared and the cave in which they lived, hesitated. Prokhor fell to the ground in horror. John helped him to get up and ordered to write down the words that the Holy Spirit of God announced to him: "In the beginning was the Word ...". Two days and six hours the Apostle's disciple wrote down the words of the future Gospel. After they returned to their village, they copied the message, and it spread throughout the island.

After one decade of St. John again retired to the cave for 10 days without food. When he was about to leave, the Lord's Voice was heard again: "John, John! Create in the cave ten more days, and in this place great mysteries will be revealed to you. " John remained and saw the Great Powers of God and the angel who explained to him everything he saw and heard. After the apostle called his disciple Prokhor, and he wrote down from his mouth the Revelation (Apocalypse).

Return

When John's reference was over, he returned to Ephesus. In the period from 85 to 95 he wrote the Gospel. The apostle taught everyone to love the Lord and each other. St. John began to be called the apostle of love, since he himself was an example of precisely that feeling about which Jesus Christ preached.

When Christ was crucified, John was 16 years old, but he did not abandon his teacher and was close to the end. The holy apostle died at 105 years old. It is believed that he is the only one of the saints who died not martyr, but his own death.

The whole Christian Church began to honor St. John as a sneak observer of the fate of God. The icon of St. John the Evangelist contains a symbol in the form of an eagle, which denotes the high evaporation of spiritual thought.

His secret is that, according to legend, at the end of the world he must appear before all people with a sermon of repentance for the departed Christians, when the world will be ruled by the antichrist. Therefore, it is preserved in Heaven in the flesh. After all, the story indicates that his body after the burial disappeared two days later.

John the Theologian: Icon (meaning)

The most ancient images of John the Theologian are dated to the 3rd-4th centuries. These paintings are preserved in the reliefs of ancient sarcophagi and the peculiar ornaments of the Roman catacombs, where he is represented among the twelve apostles and rarely enough with the evangelists surrounding or presenting before Jesus Christ.

In the early Christian art, represented by the mosaics of the 5th century, the apostle John was most often portrayed as young and beardless. Most likely the artists relied on the fact that he was the youngest disciple of Christ. On the icon "The Last Supper" he lays on the Savior's chest.

Very rarely, the icon of John the Theologian portrayed him in the form of an old man sitting at his desk with appropriate accessories and holding the opened codes. The apostle usually had a small pointed beard and long light wavy hair on his shoulders.

Images of a saint

In general, approximately all the evangelists were portrayed in this way, but St. John was most often portrayed as not writing, but reading or pointing to written words. And especially expressive was the icon, where the saint is sitting and his right hand is attached to the mouth - this gesture is reminiscent of the divine revelation.

There is another icon of St. John the Divine, when the saint sits and writes the text, and behind him is the blessing right hand. One of the most common types of iconography was the depiction of the apostle with the Mother of God or his pupil Prokhor and his life (16th century).

The icon of the Apostle and the Evangelist John the Theologian shows what a vivid and rich life this great saint lived, because he was the beloved disciple of the Lord.

St. John the Theologian became a patron of students and schoolchildren, he is prayed to learn to truly love God and his neighbors, ask for consent between spouses, about welfare in the family and the admonition of the faithless schismatics and heretical sectarians.