Before Christ, people of all moral categories could not overcome the statute of sinner.

As sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, all men and women were doomed to be sinners and to be regarded as such. After the Law of Moses and the Ten Commandments, people could live a live of good moral deeds, but their existence was still closed related to the sin. The highest dignity a man or a woman could reach before Christ was that of “just”. In the Orthodox calendar, all the great figures of the Old Testament are named “just”, because they couldn’t overcome the sinner condition of their existence by themselves. In his story about the unmerciful rich man and poor Lazarus, Christ does not speak about the two reaching the gates of the kingdom of heaven, nor about the heavens, but He speaks about the bosom of Abraham and the outer darkness. In Eastern theology, this means that heaven and hell were not yet definitive, because Christ didn’t fulfill His service and didn’t make the two existential realities definitive. They were to become as such only after Jesus visited them.

In the icon of the descent, as with many of the icons depicting Christ after the Resurrection, His body is radiating light. But in bidimensional painting, this is not an easy thing to depict. The iconographer chose to depict the outer glowing of the body of Christ using layers upon layers of related colors, such as white to light blue. Also the shroud of Jesus is white as the snow, bringing more light inside the icon. The light of the shroud contrasts with the dark colors used to paint the faces of all, another particularity of the orthodox icons. Also, the small rays around Christ suggest the same thing: we are in the presence of a person radiating light. At the bottom of the icon we can see two smashed doors, upon which Christ walks. These are the gates of darkness, destroyed by the force of the Resurrected Son of God. He steps with death upon death to bring life to every human being. The bones inside the cavity suggest the persons we see around Christ are really dead.

The position of the body of Christ is very dynamic, He moves easily and with great efficiency. But He goes for the characters to His right. These are the ancient kings of Israel, His great servants, who had waited for him for a long time. Christ is somehow going from the right of the icon to the left, a thing that suggests He has passed by the characters on the right side of the icon. Still, those people here do not follow Him, meaning that the resurrection of all does not mean the salvation of all. Some still want to liger into darkness.

Christ bears His cross into the His left hand, because only through cross the eternal life can be gained. Another great feature of this icon the nature’s participation to this event. As we said in another place, nature is depicted in inversed perspective, the mountains are not smaller and more distant from the viewer, but they tend to close in on him and to embrace the main character of the icon. They participate by sheltering Christ, as they did in the icon of the Birth of Jesus.

Again, it’s an icon of great depth and a synthesis of orthodox soteriology.

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