Description
This is a beautiful early 19th century icon from Central Russia of the Holy Trinity as revealed in the Hospitality of Abraham to God Who appeared in the form of Three Angels. The depiction of God the Father as an old man sitting on a throne is incorrect according to the iconographic tradition, as the revelation of God in the Old Testament as The Ancient of Days, was really a revelation of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, God the Son. St. John says clearly in the beginning of his Gospel, “No man hath seen God at any time: the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him” (John 1:18).
However, since God did appear as Three Angels to the Patriarch Abraham, we can depict in the holy icons God as Trinity in the form of these Three Angels. In this icon the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity sit at a table while Abraham and his wife Sarah serve them. Above, Abraham washes their feet, the Angels are bidden farewell as they continue on the road, and Lot and his family are taken out of Sodom just before its destruction, led by an angel, but Lot’s wife has become a pillar of salt by looking back.