DEISIS TIER

The Deisis represents a variant of the Apostles tier full-length. It’s characteristic for Russian iconostasis of the second half of the 17th century to locate the Deisis tier above the Festive and below the Prophets one. The iconographic design of the iconostasis (1653) in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin became the sample for the Deisis tier in the Ascension Cathedral. Originally there were fifteen icons of the Deisis, but now there are only eleven of them.

The image of The Great Hierarch occupies the very centre of the Deisis tier, according to Russian iconographic tradition of the late 16th – early 17th century. To the left of the icon, there are images of the Virgin, the Archangel Michael, the Apostle Peter and St John the Theologian; to the right, there are images of St John the Precursor, the Archangel Gabriel, the Apostle Paul and James the Greater.

The similarity with other icons of the iconostasis in painting faces of the saints allows saying that they were painted simultaneously in about 1679.