PUBLICATIONS

After a detailed investigation of many years, delving into the sacramental and revelatory world of the art of hagiographers of the past, icon painter, Anthi Valsamaki attempted to render the richness of the Akathistos Hymn in a contemporary manner. Following the rich tradition of icon illustration, and keeping firmly in sight the precise theological interpretation of each of the 24 verses of this particular hymn, which is so significant for Orthodox Christianity, she illustrated each verse using India ink and cross-hatching.
Anthi Valsamaki, a graduate of the Set Design Department of the Vakalo Schools and the Athens School of Fine Arts (the icon painting workshop of K. Xynopoulos), is in charge of the Benaki Museum icon painting workshop. To date, she has had eight solo shows; she has been responsible for the icon decoration of many churches in Greece and abroad; and her works are in many private collections. She is one of the few women icon painters permitted to paint the icons on church walls, having received a special dispensation to this end from the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople. She is the author of a series of books discussing the technique and the symbolic nature of images in Orthodox iconography.

Forewords to the volume were written by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, and the director of the Museum, Professor Angelos Delivorrias.

The work includes extensive references to the history of the hymn, how it was created, its form and content, as well as the iconography corresponding to each verse, as that was formulated in the final years of the 13th century. The introductory note was written by byzantologist, Dr. Stavros I. Arvanitopoulos.