The fifteenth-century Deesis icon with the Archangels and Apostles Peter and Paul is the central part of the Deesis row from the iconostasis of an unknown church. The Greek word deesis means prayer, praise, or intercession, and the most important figures in this depiction are Christ Pantocrator in the center, with the Virgin Mary turning toward him to his right, and St. John the Baptist to his left as the most important intercessors. They form the so-called Trimorphion. The Deesis was an essential part of depictions of the Last Judgment and the most important row in the iconostasis. Icons on this theme illustrate no historical event, but contain theological truths—the idea of the intercession of the most important saints for Christ—the Savior and Judge. Our icon is a fragment of the so-called Apostolic Deesis, in which Mary and St. John the Baptist are accompanied by the Apostles Peter and Paul, in addition to the Archangels Michael and Gabriel. This concept developed in our region under the influence of Balkan painting. The icon from the MNZP is one of the most valuable and stylistically best in Polish collections. The elongated proportions of the figures are characteristic of the Byzantine Renaissance of the Palaeologus. It was added to the collection in 1945, along with other exhibits from the then-closed Ukrainian Museum “Stryvihor.”
