The carved wooden iconostasis of the 18th century for the Orthodox Church in the city of Homs was restored by the Orthodox priest Father Spiridon. The Temple of St. George the Victorious in this Syrian city was destroyed in 2012 during the fighting. In 2015, the restoration of the temple began, and with it the iconostasis, which was literally smashed to pieces by the militants.
- It had to be collected piece by piece, like a puzzle. We had over 250 pieces of this iconostasis. All of them had to be numbered, cleaned and sealed with a special compound. - explains Father Spiridon. Some elements have not been restored, and new ones are clearly visible in their place. So the Orthodox cross crowning the iconostasis, which took the blow of the collapsed roof, had to be partially redone.
Father Spiridon is a professional icon painter who studied with the best masters in Greece and devoted the last 19 years of his life to the restoration of icons. Father Spiridon does not take money for work, even as difficult as picking up pieces of a huge iconostasis - he paints new icons, and restores old ones with the money he earned.
In the Temple of the Forty Martyrs in Homs alone, before the war, there were about 250 icons, many of which were 300-400 years old, and now there are about 30 left. Some icons fell into the hands of the militants and were damaged, others, hoping to save the priests and parishioners, were simply buried ...
