Unveiling Miracles: A Journey through Saint Nicholas’s Life

December 6, 2024–February 8, 2026

Unveiling Miracles: A Journey through Saint Nicholas’s Life is a one-icon installation featuring a delicately painted Saint Nicholas depicting 32 episodes from his life and posthumous miracles. Crafted in exquisite detail, the icon was a crowning achievement of a Russian nineteenth-century Old Believer workshop. The finely rendered lines on the saint’s face, the shadows below his brow, and the frost-tipped whiskers in his beard convey the warmth and presence of one of the most beloved and revered leaders of the Byzantine Church.

How to Read the Scenes of this Icon

  1. Birth of St. Nicholas
  2. Nicholas turns away the breast of his mother
  3. The baptism of Nicholas
  4. Nicholas heals a woman’s withered hand
  5. The education of Nicholas
  6. Nicholas receives the office of deacon
  7. Nicholas receives the office of priest
  8. Nicholas receives the office of archbishop
  9. On the three virgins
  10. Nicholas rescues a ship from storms
  11. On the destruction of the Temple of Artemis
  12. On the three generals
  13. The miracle of Peter the Athonite
  14. Miracle about a certain man Dmitrii
  15. Tale about the three men
  16. Burial of the holy father Nicholas
  17. Miracle about saving a blameless man from death
  18. Miracle about the Polovtsian man
  19. Miracle about Vasilii the son of Agrikos
  20. Miracle about the priest Christopher
  21. Miracle about the devil disguised as a woman
  22. The transfer of St. Nicholas’s relics
  23. Miracle about the drowned child
  24. Miracle about Stephan the Serbian tsar
  25. On the same tsar Stephan
  26. Miracle about the drowned man
  27. Miracle about the Arab (Saracen)
  28. Miracle about the three icons
  29. Miracle about Simeon
  30. Miracle about the child Nicholas
  31. Miracle about the Carpet
  32. Miracle about chopping down a tree

Many of these miracles are contained in Byzantine cycles of St. Nicholas’s life. Others are preserved in late, mostly eastern Slavic collections of posthumous miracles.