On May 22, 2023, the feast of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, Archbishop of Myra in Lycia, an exhibition of children’s drawings on the theme “The Hagiographic Icon of St. Nicholas of Myra” opened at St. Nicholas Patriarchal Cathedral in New York.
Over several lessons, Sunday School students, under the guidance of cathedral parishioner and painter Lilia Popova, learned about the icon and the rules of icon painting.
First the children tried to paint an image of St. Nicholas. The next stage was painting the border scenes — episodes from the saint’s life. Students in the older and middle groups each chose one such story and drew it. The little ones colored these images.
The final stage was creating a hagiographic icon from the border scenes and images of St. Nicholas drawn or colored by the children.
Cathedral parishioner Marina Nechaeva photographed all the drawings, colorings and photocopies of icons and combined them on a computer into a single hagiographic icon.