Saint Tamara icon, Handmade Greek Orthodox icon of St Tamara of Georgia, Byzantine art wall hanging, religious gift

This handmade orthodox icon is a lithography with double varnish layer to ensure vivid colors and waterproof properties depicting Saint Tamara of Georgia is a god inspired artwork abiding to the Athonian technique that was gives this icon unique religious and aesthetic value.

St. Tamara is commemorated on the Sunday of the Myrrhbearing Women in addition to her regular commemoration on May 1. In 1166 a daughter, Tamar, was born to King George III and Queen Burdukhan of Georgia. The king proclaimed that he would share the throne with his daughter from the day she turned twelve.

The royal court unanimously vowed its allegiance and service to Tamar, and father and daughter ruled the country together for five years. After King George’s death in 1184, the nobility recognized the young Tamar as the sole ruler of all Georgia. Queen Tamar was enthroned as ruler of all Georgia at the age of eighteen. She is called “King” in the Georgian language because her father had no male heir and so she ruled as a monarch and not as a consort.

At the beginning of her reign, Tamar convened a Church council and addressed the clergy with wisdom and humility: “Judge according to righteousness, affirming good and condemning evil,” she advised. “Begin with me – if I sin I should be censured, for the royal crown is sent down from above as a sign of divine service. Allow neither the wealth of the nobles nor the poverty of the masses to hinder your work. You by word and I by deed, you by preaching and I by the law, you by upbringing and I by education will care for those souls whom God has entrusted to us, and together we will abide by the law of God, in order to escape eternal condemnation.… You as priests and I as ruler, you as stewards of good and I as the watchman of that good.”

The Church and the royal court chose a suitor for Tamar: Yuri, the son of Prince Andrei Bogoliubsky of Vladimir-Suzdal (in Georgia Yuri