Christ Church Cathedral and The Embassy of Romania in Dublin are delighted to host an exhibition of Romanian glass icons in Christ Church Cathedral from the 26th of march to the 7th of April inclusive.

In the last three centuries the icon on glass painted in Romania, in the region of Transylvania, has been visible in the European cultural landscape for the beauty of the genuine folklore themes that it depicts.

Its story begins in Nicula village, where in 1699 a wooden icon of the Virgin Mary, freshly painted by a priest from the bordering village, wept. Since then the miracle-working icon of Virgin Mary, now carefully preserved in the orthodox monastery raised there, draws great annual pilgrimages during the religious feast called “Sântămăria”, “Saint Mary”. The first pilgrims were anxious to obtain an image of the miraculous Madonna to take home. In this way the great spread of the painting of icons on glass in Transylvania began. These icons on glass reflect a particular thinking of the Transylvanian Romanian peasant, living in an intercultural space.

The artist Teodora Roşca is a painter of iconographic series in wooden churches from Romania. As a technique she uses tempera on glass made with natural pigments. She was born on October 3rd 1976 in Cluj-Napoca, Cluj county, Romania. She completed a PhD thesis on Icons of glass from Transylvania 18th-20th century at the Faculty of Orthodox Theology, “Babes-Bolyai” University, Cluj-Napoca.

She currently studies art at the National University of Arts in Bucharest and she is a Graduate from the Faculty of Orthodox Theology, Cultural Patrimony Department, “Babes-Bolyai University”, Cluj-Napoca, Romania (1999).