A train ticket with the destination “Land of the Living” written on it, two wedding rings, a key, a watch without hands – modern objects included in a Byzantine painting, on a 1.61×1 canvas with acrylic paints, compose an image that emits a message of comfort and a promise of remembrance and prayer.
“Finished in short paid long times” is the title of the painting, created by students Chrysostomos Giugis (Mathematics), Efstathios Katrelis (Social Theology), Athanasios Terzian (Visual Arts), Samaan Sharback (Theology) and Marina Vinogradova (Chemistry). under the supervision of the Postdoctoral Researcher of AUTH (EDIP Theological), Ioannis Sarigiannidis.
The students attend the Byzantine Painting courses of the Byzantine Painting Laboratory of the Department of Social Theology and Christian Culture of AUTH and, discussing last year in the Spring, they arrived at the form they would give to the work, which they dedicated to the memory of the members of their university family, who died prematurely.
Within a period of 20 days, working for several hours every day, by 2 or 3 people, they tried to answer the question, how might modern Byzantine art respond to a modern theme and thus created a painting, where elements coexist with Byzantine painting cubism, Russian avant-garde and modernism.
“This work – entirely prayerful -, which was created by students from various departments of the Byzantine painting workshop of the department of social theology and Christian culture, is the birth of a sensitivity,” the dean of the Theological School of AUTH, Professor Chrysostomos Stamoulis, told APE-MPE. “In this way, the School of Theology participates both in the mourning of the families of the tragic victims of the Tempe accident – AUTH students and all the others – and in the effort to keep their memory alive, which requires the search of the causes, but also the attribution of responsibilities, where and as appropriate, in order not to mourn such a loss once more. An unjust loss, which will forever be a nail in the body of our modern culture. A nail in the body of our humanity,” he added.
Tempi: Where souls live
“The aim of the painting is comforting, it is regarding our need to ease the pain of those who have lost their children. We wanted to say something through painting, we are interested in what became of these souls” explained, for his part, Mr. Sarigiannidis, describing the narrative of the painting “as a journey from the darkness of that night, to light and brilliance God’s”.
Reading the symbolism in this path of souls to the light, as he explained, begins with the observation of elements and colors of the painting from bottom to top.
In the lower part of the painting the earth is depicted schematically, showing the rocks and rock formations of the Tempe area. Two black shapes refer to railway tunnels, but also to the darkness of the dawning day. Going up, you can see personal belongings of the children, the diploma they never managed to get, two wedding rings of some young people who were getting ready to get married, a key from their luggage.
Two tickets indicate the time of departure from Athens and the time of arrival in the sky, which is the same time of the collision of the two trains. The final destination is written on the ticket as the “Land of the Living”, i.e. where the souls live. At the bottom right, where the train tickets say ‘have a good trip’, the ticket on the painting says ‘Blessed Paradise’.
The lit candles above symbolize the AUTH students who were lost in the accident. They burn as imaginary lamps and illuminate the path from earth to heaven. The clock does not show any specific time, as there are no pointers, thereby declaring that time has stopped and the students have passed into eternity. The red background depicts the fiery torture to which the victims of the tragedy were subjected.
Two vertical white lines that open diagonally symbolize the railway tracks but also the embrace of God that welcomes the souls of children. Inside the lines are written in gold letters the first names of the students who lost their lives.
Tempi: “We lost our friends”
“For us, it was necessary to try to express our feelings,” the student of the Department of Chemistry, Marina Vinogradova, told APE-MPE, adding that the sense of loss of the AUTH students was overwhelming. “We might not and still cannot believe that so many lives were lost. I have a spiritual father who lost spiritual children. It was as if we experienced it, we lost our friends, our family” he noted.
“How did I feel? I felt the red of anger, the cloudy gray of sadness, the cloudy oil of sadness” added Terzian Athanasios-Sarkis, a student at the School of Fine Arts, while Chrysostomos Giugis, a student at the Mathematics Department of AUTH, said: “We decided to give a symbolic character in our table. Its title is “Finished in short paid long times”. Our aim was for the work to be unifying, a praise to God and to act as a consolation for the families of the victims. This tragic event has left us all shocked. We show our compassion and support as best we can. It was a great blow to the Greek state, we tried to give a form to our mourning, making the painting a work that will remain in time.”
It is noted that the School of Theology of AUTH, on Thursday 29 February 2024, will hold a memorial service in the Holy Church of the School of Theology of AUTH (2nd floor) “for the blessed memory and eternal rest” of the souls of the victims of the train accident in Tempe. The Divine Liturgy will be held at 8-10 am. and then the memorial service will be held.
The Byzantine Painting Workshop
The Byzantine Painting Workshop of the Department of Social Theology and Christian Culture of the School of Theology of AUTH offers courses at an academic and applied interdisciplinary level. Byzantine painting is approached through Theology, Archaeology, Visual Arts, Mathematics, Geometry, Chemistry and Jurisprudence. At the same time, the Laboratory operates in the mornings, from Monday to Thursday, as a free Laboratory, offering free personalized lessons to all AUTH students.
At the Laboratory courses have been attended or are currently being attended by undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD students in Theology as well as from the Faculties of Law, Pedagogy, Positive Sciences and Fine Arts. Among them are students from other countries such as Cyprus, Syria, Russia, Ukraine, France, Bulgaria, Moldova, Poland, Uganda.
Every year, the Byzantine Painting Workshop organizes, in collaboration with KEDIVIM, certified programs (with ECTS) for learning the technique of Byzantine painting with an academic and applied character. Participation in these programs is open to anyone interested.
Among the courses, the program for learning the art of mosaic stands out, as it gives the opportunity to work on the decoration of temples and Muslim mosques.
During the year, eminent artists are invited and present various topics related to Byzantine art and to apply new techniques.
Also, the Workshop, in collaboration with monasteries of Mount Athos and women’s monasteries of Macedonia, sends male and female students for multi-day practical training in the respective monastic painting workshops. It also organizes exhibitions of Byzantine painting and mosaics and simultaneously participates in other exhibitions.
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