Unique exhibition of Byzantine Art from Mount Athos opens in Helsinki

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An extensive exhibition of Byzantine Art entitled Athos - Monastic Life on the Holy Mountain opened at Helsinki's Tennis Palace on Thursday. The exhibition contains treasures and sacred objects from the monastic community of Mount Athos, comprising close to 600 objects - icons, manuscripts, sacral objects, textiles, jewellery, crosses, paintings, and photographs. The oldest icons are more than 1,000 years old.
      "All artefacts in the exhibition have been made on Mount Athos or they have been used there", reports Curator Mikko Oranen of the Tennis Palace Art Museum.
     
Previously, the art treasures of Mount Athos have been put on display only in an exhibition that was organised in Thessaloniki in Northeastern Greece in 1997.
     
Most of the almost 600 items now on display in Helsinki are being shown for the first time outside their home country - or even outside their monastery.
      "The monks at the Mount Athos monasteries do not regard these as exhibits or museum-pieces. For them these art objects are ordinary items used in ceremonies of religious worship every day", Oranen stresses.
      "Primarily, the exhibition depicts the everyday life of the monasteries of Mount Athos", he explains.
      The designer of the exhibition's architecture was set designer Ralf Forsström. In order to create the right atmosphere, for example, replicas of a mosaic floor in an Orthodox monastery and a monk's cell have been built in the exhibition area.
     
Mount Athos is a semi-autonomous community of Orthodox monks located in the region of Macedonia in Northern Greece. About 2,000 monks live in the 20 monasteries in the area, the oldest of which was founded in 963 AD.
      The exhibition contains objects from nine monasteries and items from the collections of Byzantine Art of 15 European museums, including the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. While all of the objects are said to have originally been from Mount Athos, many of them have been taken elsewhere, for example by explorers.
     
At the press conference, the spokesman for the monastic community of Mount Athos, Hieromonk Ioustinos Simonopetritis said that he was happy that the exhibition finally opens the door on the legendary treasures of Mount Athos to female visitors as well.
      The monastic community of Mount Athos does not allow female visitors at all, and even the number of male visitors is restricted.
      In addition to the holy community of Mount Athos and the Helsinki Museum of Art, the Orthodox Church of Finland, the Greek Ministry of Culture, and th Finnish Ministry of Education have all been involved in the extensive exhibition project, which is seen as something of a cultural coup for the capital. The exhibition Athos - Monastic Life on the Holy Mountain at Helsinki's Tennis Palace Art Museum is open from Tuesday to Sunday between 11.00 a.m. and 8.30 p.m. until January 21st, 2007.* * Address: Salomonkatu 15 (near Kamppi Center), 00100 Helsinki.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Treasures of Mount Athos to be put on display in Helsinki (2.6.2006)

Links:
  Mount Athos Home Page
  Tennis Palace Art Museum

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