Hand-painted icons are custom works of art, produced to meet individual needs in accordance with Holy Tradition. Hand-painted icons are on canvas or particle board.
Hand-painted icons and also frescoes for church walls are available from Dormition Skete. They are painted by Archbishop Gregory, the abbot of Dormition Skete, and his disciples at the monastery. Archbishop Gregory has been painting icons for over fifty years, and works in the Greek Cretan School of Iconography, following in the footsteps of the great contemporary master iconographer of Greece, Photios Kontoglou.
Archbishop Gregory (Abu-Asaly) is of Lebanese and Syrian descent, baptized in the Antiochian Church, and comes from a long line of religious Orthodox men and women. He is directly related to the first Antiochian bishop consecrated in America, Archbishop Victor (Abu-Asaly) 1924-1934. Archbishop Gregory is a monk of the Great-Schema, who holds the monastic tradition of the Holy Mountain Athos, in Greece. He came to Colorado to live the monastic skete life and to establish Dormition Skete in 1979.
To know the background of your iconographer is good and useful information, for it helps to insure that the icons are painted in the true tradition of Orthodoxy. This tradition has been nourished and handed down to us from the East, where Archbishop Gregory has visited, usually once a year, making pilgrimages to Mount Athos, Meteora, Jerusalem, Sinai, and places like these where ancient icons are preserved.
A panel icon from Dormition Skete is painted on 1/2 inch wood, with 23K gold, and polished haloes. The price of each icon is determined by the size and number of figures, so a quote is necessary for each subject. The icon is then finished with a polyurethane varnish, and makes a handsome addition to any church or for private devotions in the home.
The fresco icons, available through Dormition Skete, are painted on canvas, and then applied to the walls of churches. The dimensions of these paintings are unique to every wall area. Nothing is too small, and nothing is too large. After the icons are painted on canvas, they are shipped to the destination, and are applied to the walls by Archbishop Gregory and his assistants. The walls are then completed and the finished product looks as if the whole theme was painted on the wall, as is depicted in the dome of our Catalogue. This dome, the decorative work, and the pendentives are comprised of 60 pieces of canvas, which were attached to the plaster and finished to look as though painted on the site. This greatly facilitates the accuracy of the frescoes, because they are done at the monastery, under ideal conditions, and then attached to the walls of the particular church.
We encourage you to click the links below to see many more photographs of our work in various churches around the country: