13 Through the Looking-Glass
Remembering the First Exhibition of Melkite Icons at the Sursock Museum in Beirut, May–June 1969
In: Arabic Christianity between the Ottoman Levant and Eastern EuropeSearch for other papers by Ioana Feodorov in
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Abstract
The 1969 exhibition of Melkite icons organized at the Sursock Museum in Beirut under the coordination of a Romanian scholar, Virgil Cândea, was an event that led to the initiation of a new field of research in the history of post-Byzantine art. Fifty years after, in 2019, events were organized to celebrate half a century of studies on this special church art form. This chapter gives a report on the circumstances that helped this event take place, the scholarly cooperation of many experts, hierarchs, and clerics from several Eastern and Western countries, and the significance of producing an exhibition catalogue that subsequently became an obligatory source for any comment on the Melkite icons. Complementary to Charbel Nassif’s rich historiography in the previous chapter, this closing contribution is a homage to all those who granted time and expertise to the 1969 Beirut exhibition of Arab Christian icons.