The presentation of the icon “Christ as Apothecary,” which was painted in the icon-painting school of UCU, will take place on February 13 at UCU. It will serve as a spiritual amulet for pharmacists.
The original is the Christus als Apotheker icon from 1630, which is now in the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit in Bremen, Germany. The director of the pharmaceutical company Market Universal, Oleh Nykulyshyn, came up with the idea to pain such an icon.
“The idea originated in the walls of the Ukrainian Catholic University, where I studied at the Key Executive MBA program at the Lviv Business School of UCU (LvBS). In an old German book we found images of Christus als Apotheker. Then we turned to Bishop Borys Gudziak, who then directed us to the icon-painting school,” said Oleh Nykulyshyn.
As told by the artist Julia Monko, making the icon was very interesting and at the same time unusual: “We tried to add some Ukrainian elements to the icon, but it does not deviate from the original.” Thus the German words in Gothic fonts were replaced by a Ukrainian translation, and the face of Christ and certain parts correspond to East Slavic iconographic tradition.
“For us the challenge was to transform the icon, on the one hand, by not moving away from the principles of Eastern iconography, and on the other hand, leaving the core as it was,” said the project manager Taras Tymo.
After the consecration of the icon and its copies, they were given to the network of pharmacies.
Oleh Nykulyshyn transferred all copyrights on the icon to the Ukrainian Catholic University. Therefore, funds from the sale of copies will go toward the development of the University.
