Cathedral Arts
New Christian Icons
Icon Exhibition: January 12- April 24, 2025
A partnership with Iconographer Christine Hales in 2025
Our Lady of the Sign icon
Mary has her hands in the praying (orans) position and at the center of the icon is the Christ child. Two seraphim flank Mary as she prays.
Enhance your spiritual journey this Lenten and Easter season with renowned iconographer Christine Hales. Our sacred spaces will transform with her profound and evocative icons, including her series of the Stations of the Cross displayed in St. Mary’s Chapel. These icons are not just art—they are windows into the divine, designed to deepen our communal experience of these holy seasons.
About the Artist
Christine Hales holds a BFA in Painting and Art Education from the Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, and an MS in Art Therapy from the College of New Rochelle, NY, and has studied at the Artists League of New York, The National Academy of Design New York, NY, and Institute of Fine Arts, Florence, Italy.
Her paintings and icons have been in many national group exhibitions as well as several solo exhibits in New York. Reviewed in the New York Times and featured in Hudson Valley Magazine, Christine’s landscapes reflect the artist’s love of nature and transformation. Her work as an iconographer is in many churches and in public and private collections.
Introduction to Icons
Sunday, February 2, 2025
12:00-1:00 pm in Harvard Hall
Join us for an enlightening talk with Christine Hales as she guides us through the spiritual practice of praying with icons. This introduction will help you engage more fully with the Lenten season by using these sacred images as tools for prayer and reflection.
The Theology of Icons
Sunday, March 30, 2025
12:00-1:00 pm in Harvard Hall
Delve deeper into the rich theological foundations of iconography. Christine will explore the spiritual meanings behind these holy images and invite parishioners to share their experiences of the icons throughout Lent and Easter.
Icon Writing Retreat
Tuesday-Friday, February 11-14, 2025
In-person at the Cathedral
This immersive four-day retreat is designed for all levels, including complete beginners. You do not have to be an artist to write icons! This class welcomes those who simply want to learn more about icons as well as the more serious person who wants to develop an approach to icon writing, Becoming an iconographer is approached as a way of inquiry and development in the Christian life rather than just a theoretical or practical art class.
It’s not about making the perfect icon, but it is about having an encounter with God through art materials, understanding Christian Icon history, and prayer, and being able to share that experience with others so they can be blessed too.
Throughout the class, participants will engage in intensive sessions that cover a wide range of topics including the fundamentals of Iconography, how to paint icons using egg tempera and gold leaf gilding, icon history, practical techniques for creating Byzantine style icons, and incorporating them into your prayer life.
Christine’s icons are in many churches internationally and she will provide personalized feedback and guidance to help you refine your skills and develop a distinctive voice.
Don’t miss this chance to connect with fellow iconographers, exchange ideas, and gain valuable insights that will help transform your approach. Take the first step toward mastering the art of icon writing.
An Artist’s View of St. Peter: Wise, Human, Struggling Like Us
The Feast of our patron saint, Peter, is June 29. We can perhaps identify with the disciple Peter depicted in the stained-glass window from 1914 above our main altar. Trying to walk on water, Peter is struggling in a very human way to reach Jesus. We have an entire story before us.
Peter appears in a quite different way in an impressive painting on the south wall of St. Mary’s Chapel. In this rendering we see Peter as saint, robed in red and blue and holding one gold key. The artist has departed from many traditional depictions in which Peter is arrayed in yellow and blue and holds two keys. Here the rich colors and brilliant gold background in an elaborate gold frame tell us that this is an important, idealized symbol. But the face is not that of an idealized saint. The expression on the face of this mature, human man evokes wisdom, kindliness, and perhaps the struggles of life.
The artist is Adelia Samaha, a longtime St. Petersburg resident, who has had a close association with St. Peter’s. She has painted many portraits in her long career and is also well known for charming decorative painting on a variety of surfaces. Our former St. Theresa’s Guild commissioned Adelia to create this painting, which she completed in 1974.
In a year when we are celebrating many other significant anniversaries, it is appropriate to acknowledge this one. This year also marks our 55th anniversary as the Cathedral for the Diocese of Southwest Florida (1969); our 135th year as a worshiping community (1889); and the 125th anniversary of the completion of our original worship space (1899).
The model for St. Peter is Adelia’s paternal uncle, Joseph Malouf (1893-1968), who became Archbishop of the Melkite Church in the Diocese of Baalbek, Lebanon. (The Melkite Church, composed mainly of Christians from Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, and Palestine, joined the Roman Catholic Church in 1724.)
Take a few moments to look at the window and the painting. How do they affect you? What do they tell you about this ordinary person who became a saint? Think of the ways in which visual arts inform us that other arts do not. Give thanks for the vision and skills of the artists who enhance our spiritual life so beautifully, and for eyes to behold their work.