Venerable Andrei (Rublev), Iconographer (XV)

The Venerable Andrei Rublev, the great Russian iconographer, was born in the fourteenth century. Very scant biographical information about him has come down to us. Apparently the blessed one belonged to the circle of the Russian nobility, since in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Russia only the nobility bore surnames. Some suppose that the saint must have been educated in Byzantium and Bulgaria, while others think that he was trained in Russia itself under the guidance of Theophanes the Greek. The place where Andrei Rublev was tonsured a monk is not known for certain, but we know that his labours are connected with two monasteries: the Holy Trinity Lavra of Sergius and the Saviour monastery of Andronikov in Moscow. His work bears clear witness to the saint’s astonishing wisdom.

The blessed father’s chief works are the iconostases and frescoes of the Annunciation cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin and of the Dormition cathedral in Zvenigorod, the paintings of the Dormition cathedral in Vladimir and of the Saviour monastery of Andronikov, and a copy of the wonderworking Vladimir icon of the Mother of God; but especially worthy of mention is the crown of his work, the icon of the Most Holy Trinity.

The saint mostly worked together with other iconographers, Theophanes the Greek, Prokhor of Gorodets and Daniel Chorny, but the Trinity icon is his own independent work.

During the last twenty years Andrei Rublev was especially close to Daniel Chorny. Both fathers are buried in the Saviour monastery of Andronikov.