Iconographers
We at St. Demetrios are blessed to have employed the masterful talents of Panayiotis and Dimitrios Christodoulou to create and install the iconography for our Church. They (with the assistance of their wives Matoula and Evangelea) are responsible for all iconography, including those for the iconostasis currently being carved in Romania.
By the Grace of God, these brothers are living their ministry as full-time, professional iconographers in their home city of Thessalonika in Greece.
Panayiotis and Dimitrios began this project by travelling to Saco in the Fall of 2005 to survey our Church, take measurements, and to meet the parish. Returning to their studios, they created the icons on canvas pieces, laboring for months and months to do so. They shipped the completed canvasses to us, rolled up in long plastic tubes, to await their return in 2006 for installation.
Our patience (and theirs) were put to the test as our State Department took months to approve their visa request. Finally, the brothers returned to Maine, this time with their wives, in early summer 2006 to install the Pantokrator and the Prophets in the dome, the Platytera and remaining east wall altar icons, St. John baptizing in the Baptistry, and the Life Giving Spring in the chapel. Laboring from 6:00 a.m. to midnight, often on scaffolding at heights up to 35 feet for hours at a time, the four installed the completed canvasses by gluing them to the sheetrock walls, then painstakingly installing 4"x4" gold leaf squares one at a time. The two couples lived on the Church grounds during their three weeks of labor, their home-cooked meals brought to them by many of our parishioners.
Please enjoy the accompanying photographs that chronicle the first phase installation.
We fervently anticipate their return in the Spring of 2008 (God and the State Department willing) to install the north (left) side iconography on the walls, ceilings, pendentives, beams, and spandrels.
Please pray for the health and salvation of Panayiotis, Dimitrios, Matoula, and Evangelea.
website: www.holyicon.gr
email: hristodoulou@in.gr
© 2006-2008 St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church Saco, Maine
