Our Iconography Project

When Prince Vladimir the Great (Saint Vladimir of Kiev) was seeking a religion for his people, the pagan Kievan Rus, he sent emissaries to study and report on the religious traditions of all his neighbor countries.

When the emissaries returned from Constantinople, and described the Orthodox worship at the great cathedral of Hagia Sophia, they are reported to have said, "We no longer knew whether we were in heaven or on earth," and of the beauty of the church, "we know not how to tell of it."

We know longer knew whether we were in heaven or on earth. The visitor to an Orthodox church, on stepping inside, should ideally feel transported into a new world, one that affirms in the most forceful way that the beauty of God's creation is a manifestation of His glory and His love for mankind. The iconography that traditionally adorns the interior of an Orthodox church plays a major role in this affirmation.

Icons have also traditionally played an educative role in the Orthodox church, conveying pictorially the lessons conveyed verbally in the Gospels—art that is "a vehicle of the Gospel teaching," in the words of Leonid Ouspensky ("The Meaning and Language of Icons").

And perhaps most importantly, on a theological level, Orthodox icons—especially icons of Christ—are statements affirming the Incarnation: "The undepictable Word of the Father became depictable when He took flesh of you, O Theotokos" (Kontakion for the Sunday of Orthodoxy).

It is with these traditions in mind that our church embarked on a major project to complete the interior ceiling iconography of Holy Trinity. To the church's current iconography, the new project added 35 full-panel settings of events from the life of Christ, the Old Testament, and the Tradition of the Church; 61 full-body saints; and 20 "medallion" depictions of the saints. If you cannot visit in person to see this beautiful installation, you can see a rendering of what the completed project looks like here.

The iconographer was Leonidas Diamontopoulos, the same iconographer by whose hand the church's original iconography was written. Mr. Diamontopoulos prepared the icons in his studio in Greece, and came to Dallas to oversee their installation. The pictures on this page show some of the icons "in progress" at Mr. Diamontopoulos's studio. The pictures were taken by Father Christopher Constantinides, our former proistamenos, during a visit to Mr. Diamontopoulos's studio in the summer of 2015.

The first phase of the project—the installation of icons in the altar area and the two transepts—was completed in September 2015. The second phase, which installed the icons in the remainder of the nave, was completed in September and October of 2017.

A thank you to our donors

We are deeply grateful for the donations we received to make this project possible. We were blessed to have so many members of our parish—individually, as families, and through our many organizations—participate in this effort, thereby returning to our Church the blessings and gifts we have received from the Lord.

We thank you for your support of this project and for all that you do for Holy Trinity!