Taken at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Byzantine Catholic Church in Virginia Beach, Virginia, on January 8, 2025. During the Great Blessing of Water at Epiphany (Theophany), the priest holds lit candles and a cross over a golden vessel of water to be blessed.
Taken at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Byzantine Catholic Church in Virginia Beach, Virginia, on Pascha, April 5, 2026. Worshippers, led by a priest in white vestments, walk along the side of the church at dusk during the Paschal procession.
Taken at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Byzantine Catholic Church in Virginia Beach, Virginia, on Pascha, April 5, 2026. At the beginning of the Paschal service, the faithful walk in procession around the outside of the church, led by a processional cross, before the doors are opened to proclaim the Res
Taken at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Byzantine Catholic Church in Virginia Beach, Virginia, on Pascha, April 5, 2026. Families bring baskets of bread, eggs, sausage and sweets to be blessed after the Paschal liturgy, a tradition in many Eastern European Catholic communities.
Taken at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Byzantine Catholic Church in Virginia Beach, Virginia, on the Sunday of the Holy Cross, March 8, 2026. On the third Sunday of Great Lent, the cross is brought out for veneration and decorated with red and white carnations between two red vigil lamps.
Taken at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Byzantine Catholic Church in Virginia Beach, Virginia, on February 2, 2025. The painted icon of the Mystical Supper (the Last Supper) hangs above the altar table with its candlestand, gospel book and tabernacle.
Taken at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Byzantine Catholic Church in Virginia Beach, Virginia, on December 7, 2025, the week of the feast of Saint Nicholas. An icon of the bishop and wonderworker Saint Nicholas rests on a cushion on a red cloth, between two red vigil lamps and a standing cross.
Taken at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Byzantine Catholic Church in Virginia Beach, Virginia, on December 7, 2025. A framed icon of the Theotokos of Kazan, in which Mary holds the Christ Child, sits on a wooden table.
Taken at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Byzantine Catholic Church in Virginia Beach, Virginia, on Pascha, March 31, 2024. The icon of the Resurrection, which shows Christ raising Adam and Eve from the dead, stands on a stand in front of the iconostasis, surrounded by Easter lilies.
Taken at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Byzantine Catholic Church in Virginia Beach, Virginia, on Palm Sunday, March 24, 2024. In many Eastern Christian traditions, pussy willow and flowering branches are blessed and carried on Palm Sunday in place of palm fronds.
Taken at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Byzantine Catholic Church in Virginia Beach, Virginia, on Palm Sunday, March 24, 2024. Branches of yellow forsythia and pussy willow, used in place of palms, lie on a table beneath a painted icon-style crucifix.
Taken at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Byzantine Catholic Church in Virginia Beach, Virginia, on the night of Pascha, March 31, 2024. The full moon rises beside the church's small onion dome under a deep blue sky.
Saint Symeon the Younger was a stylite saint, an early Christian ascetic who fled the world for the desert and, perched on a column, spent his days fasting and praying. The site of Symeon’s column attracted many pilgrims during and after his lifetime. Medallions like this one, showing Symeon atop hi
Bronze oil lamps were made either with stands, like the nearby example, or with chains for suspension on hooks within homes and churches. This lamp is cast in the form of a griffin, a guardian figure from antiquity frequently used in Byzantine churches, which contained much wealth. The Christian mon
After the Crusader conquest of the Holy Land in 1099, Jerusalem experienced a revival of Christian pilgrimage. During the 12th century, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher was rebuilt, redecorated, and reconsecrated. With the influx of new pilgrims, especially from Western Europe, lead ampullae (small
These flasks bear the image of Saint Menas, an early martyr of the Christian Church whose shrine was in the desert southwest of Alexandria in Egypt. These flasks were probably used by pilgrims to hold oil taken from the lamp that burned over this saint's tomb. Probably manufactured near the shrine,
This rare Ottoman embroidery features a floral bouquet that enriches the field under an elegant arch of gilt-metal thread. Flanked by vines of tulips and irises on a silver-metal-thread ground, vases of tulips and jonquils within cartouches adorn the main border and the well-turned corners, a sign o
This pyx shows Christ as Pantokrator (Ruler of the World), the Apostles, and the Virgin as a continuous frieze of figures seated in high-backed chairs with cushions. The tapered lip of the body of the pyx was intended to dovetail into the missing lid. Because of its style, the box is thought to be f
This rare surviving hanging with Christian symbols likely served as a wall decoration in a church or a home. The three men who stand beneath an arch may represent the three Hebrews who refused to worship a golden idol, and when cast into the fiery furnace, remained unharmed due to God’s deliverance
The images found on the sides of surviving lead pilgrims' ampullae include scenes relating to the life of Christ, and by extension to the holy sites (loca sancta) where the events took place. Cast into the sides of this ampulla are scenes of Christ's Crucifixion on the front and the Ascension on the
Impressively large and elaborately embellished, the cross to which this fragment belonged was likely carried in liturgical processions. The central medallion on its front depicts Christ, flanked by medallions showing the Virgin and Saint John the Baptist. Together they form the Deesis, a powerful By
It was a common early Christian practice to stamp images and inscriptions into loaves of bread using special molds. Representing the Church of the Holy Sepulcher on Mount Golgotha--the hill outside Jerusalem on which Christ was crucified and entombed--this wooden mold was probably used to stamp loav
In this extraordinary fragment with a rare background resembling woven silk patterns, two roundels in the corners display the busts of haloed Evangelists holding books and raising their right hands in a gesture of teaching. In the center, the large roundel preserves traces of an enthroned figure, pr
These four liturgical silver vessels—a paten and three chalices (1950.378–81)—form what is now called the Beth Misona Treasure, named for the village in northern Syria for which the objects were made. While nothing is known about the exact location and circumstances of the treasure's discovery, the
