Hagiographic icons are a special iconographic genre that has become widespread in Russia. Natalia Komashko and Elena Sayenkova, who wrote the book “Russian Hagiographic Icon”, call this iconographic type an important contribution of the “Russian people to the treasury of Christian art.” Some researchers trace the origin of hagiographic icons to book miniatures or wall paintings in churches.

This frame was created for a small icon, probably of the Mother of God. The central segment above the centerpiece illustrates the Coronation of the Virgin by the Holy Trinity. The upper row depicts Archangel Michael and St. John Chrysostom on the left, and Archangel Gabriel and St. Andrew of Crete on the right.

One row below, the master placed, apparently, the heavenly patrons of the person who commissioned the icon and their family members: the Venerable Saints John of the Ladder and Basil the Confessor, the Great Martyr Paraskeva (right) and Xenia the Righteous of Rome.

The “northern” saints are painted in the lower row: the Venerable Saints Sabbatius and Zosimas of Solovki (left), Pachomius Kensky (of Kenozero) and Kirill Chelmogorsky (right). In the center are the most revered Saints Macarius of the Unzha and the Yellow Water Lake and Alexander Oshevensky.

The image of Kirill Chelmogorsky is considered to be an iconographic rarity: the veneration of the saint in the Kargopol region began in the 18th century and was of a local nature. The history of the painting of the first icon of St. Kirill in 1429 by a certain Novgorodian was described in the saint’s hagiography by Ioann, a priest and icon painter of the Intercession Church in Lyadiny. The further fate of that icon is unknown, and no information about it has been confirmed.

The first image known to exist was painted by said Ioann, which he also mentioned in the text of the hagiography. Three times the Venerable Kirill appeared to him in a dream, and after the third time the iconographer, at the behest of the saint, decided to paint his image. Prior to that, there had been no icons of St. Kirill, and Ioann relied solely on his vision. After talking with a relative, the priest of the Trinity Church Gerasim, the iconographer learned that Saint Kirill had appeared to him as well and the descriptions of the saint’s appearance in their visions were consistent with one another.

Kirill Chelmogorsky in the icon painted by Ioann is similar to another ascetic — St. Macarius of the Unzha and the Yellow Water Lake: he is depicted as a gray-haired elder with a medium-length beard divided into two parts. This image later became canonical.