The Face of Light, St Sophrony’s Icons of Christ, by Sister Gabriela.
This cloth bound, 168 page A5 book was published by the Monastic Community of St John the Baptist. It reproduces many of the artist’s iconographic portraits of Christ, along with selected sayings and quotations from the Saint.
Saint Sophrony was born in Moscow at the end of the nineteenth century. He trained as a painter, under tutors that included Wassily Kandinsky. After the revolution he moved to Paris, via Italy and Berlin, exhibiting his work and making a living from portraiture and other painting. Eventually he felt called to become a monk and moved to Athos, where he lived for over 20 years, eventually returning to Paris. When he decided to create a monastic community in Western Europe he moved to Essex, in South East England, and for the rest of his life lived and worked their, as an abbot and ‘starets’. He also started to paint icons and filled the monastery with frescoes and icons.
