The Monastery of the Birth of the Mother of God, with the publication of the below indicated table, wants to manifest Her Gratitude and Gratefulness towards all the Friends of the Church – visible and nominally declared or anonym – for the ineffable support and aid they generously have granted.

The Monastery materializes expressly this recognition through the many Children of God composing it – children, senior, families in need and nuns – who have been the receiver of all these gifts.

The Monastery of the Birth of the Mother of God has also largely beneficiated of these donations, namely regarding to its structures renewal and amplification.

We do a fraternal appeal to all the ones who become aware of these initiatives, in the sense of – altruistically – giving continuity to the examples of Love and of Generosity here happened – through similar gifts to those below mentioned – so that the Monastery may continue the Apostolic work that is being accomplished.

Abbess Rafaela.

For any information or supplementary explanation:

Address: Mosteiro Ortodoxo do Nascimento da Mae de Deus
Qta. da Granja – 2.600-582 – Cachoeiras
Vila Franca de Xira – Portugal

Telephone number: 00 351 91 105 23 20

E-mail: mosteiro.nascimento.m.deus@igrejaortodoxa.pt

Fax number: 00 351 261 865 912

By FERNANDO MADAIL

Orthodox Christians. The election of Kirill I as successor of Alexis II to be Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church caused the world curiosity. And in Portugal, there are also temples, as the one of the monastery of the Birth of Virgin Mary, similar to those who built the fame of the Hellenic mountain of Athos or the Bulgarian mountain of Ryla.

Nuns who paint along with an Andrei Rublov

“For the one who can observe it, an icon is an authentic theological lesson”, summarizes archbishop Theodoro, chancellor of the Orthodox Catholic Church of Portugal. The interior of the church of the monastery of the Birth of Virgin Mary, founded on 2001 in a quiet land at the municipality of Vila Franca de Xira, in the opinion of the archbishop – recognized by the faithful with the Panaghia (icon-medallion of the Virgin Mary) on the chest – is the most beautiful Orthodox temple of the Iberian Peninsula.

Two of the nuns living there, between the birds chirping and the brooks murmur, devote themselves to the art of painting the icons with pigments, underlining “the shining splendor coming from the Saints” through the golden leaf with which they dispose the background. They will not have the genius of an Andrei Rublov (1360-1430), that famous Russian artist internationalized by Tarkovsky in the cinema, nor the one of his masters Theophan the Greek and Procor of Gorodets.

The major part of the icons that the faithful may appreciate there – as also, in the monasteries of Sintra and Buçaco, in the churches of the archdiocese of Braga and Lisbon, the dioceses of Coimbra and Aveiro, Oporto and Vigo, Evora and Setubal, Silves and Portimão – seems to follow the ancient Painters’ Guide of the Athos mountain in the figures conception: front characters with majestic posture, static and lengthened faces of intense glance, insignia and gestures as attributes of each Christianity figure, perspective and scenery almost ignored, colors more connected with symbolism than with realism.

But in other icons, namely in those who represent episodes as the Dormition of Virgin Mary (the equivalent, in the Catholicism, to the Assumption of Our Lady), there is a little less of this conceptual rigidity. At last, just like the Western tradition, there is two thousand years of esthetic schools in the Eastern Christianity, which will have been accented even more due to an enormous variety of rites and independent traditions, for the Patriarch of Constantinople has only an honorific strength, not the Pope’s standardization ability.

For better realize the rich scale of these conceptions, one only need to notice the iconastasis (sort of screen separating the sanctuary of the nave), flanked by the archangels Michael and Gabriel, of this church in Vila Franca de Xira. The panel has a set of scenes of Christ's life and the Saint Supper (for the Catholics, Last Supper) in a more naturalist style. But the major painted figures on the wooden plate – from the king David to the Doctors of the Church (Saint Basil of Caesarea, Saint John Chrysostom, Saint Gregory of Nazianz), passing by the prophets and the apostles – everyone has a more hieratic conception.

The nearly fifty thousand Orthodox Portuguese – now together with many Russian, Ukrainian, Georgian, Moldovan and Rumanian emigrants – may not be expert on the religious controversies, like the Filioque one (the Latin expression meaning “and from the Son”, added by the Roman Catholic Church to the Creed to explain that the Holy Spirit proceeds not only from the Father, but also from the Son, which was considered as a heresy by the Eastern Church, giving rise to the subsequent schism between Rome and Constantinople); but they know that, independently of following the Byzantine or Slavic liturgical rite, they celebrate the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, but not the Catholic holiday of the God's Body.

And, watching carefully to the proliferating icons in that small church of the monastery, dedicated to Saint Sergey of Radonez (1314-1392), one of the most important Russian Saints, one verifies that the figures choice also illustrates the evolution of the Orthodox Catholic Church of Portugal. If there are common images to all the Orthodox Churches, like the one of Christ Pantocrator (in Greek, All-Mighty), there are also those revered by each tradition.

In this temple of the feminine monastery of Vila Franca de Xira, a complex completely built in wood, there are Portuguese Saints of the first millennium (like Saint Peter of Rates, Saint Martin of Dume, Saint Idace of Chaves) as also Saints of the Greek tradition (Saint Irina Chrysovalantou) or Rumanian tradition (Saint Paraschiva). In the courtyard, between other offered icons by foreign communities in Portugal, there is a representation in noble material of Saint George killing the dragon that is a donation of the Georgian community.

All this could hardly be expected while seeing the discreet outside of the temple, following to the Orthodox rules. At last, when snow fell a couple of years ago, people seeing the photos could easily think they had been caught in the Hellenic Mountain of Athos or in the Bulgarian Mountain of Ryla.

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