Rare Mt Athos icon on display

A rare Greek icon named Axion Esti from Mount Athos was transported on Wednesday to Athens, where it will be exhibited for public veneration over the next two weeks.

The icon, which rarely leaves the all-male monastic community, was welcomed with honors accorded to heads of state at the Metropolitan Cathedral by Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens and All Greece, who had requested that it be brought to the capital on the occasion of the bicentennial of the Greek Revolution in 1821. The event had been postponed due to the Covid epidemic.

The Byzantine-era icon depicts the Virgin Mary with the infant Jesus, and is covered in silver on all but the faces.