The saint forefather Enoch is the son of Jared, the ancestor of Seth, the son of Adam. Enoch belonged to the seventh generation from Adam.
Genesis gives a brief account of Enoch’s life. He was the father of Methuselah and lived three hundred and sixty five years. Apart from Methuselah, Enoch had other children whose name are not mentioned in the Bible “Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away” (Genesis 5: 24). This Old Testament account has different interpretations including non-canonic ones. According to one of them, the Lord took Enoch to heaven for righteous life, in the same way he took to heaven the Prophet Elijah.
In Russian medieval art, the forefather Enoch is traditionally depicted as an old man among the Old Testament forefathers and prophets. Such depictions had been originally encountered in temple mural paintings, such as at the Church of the Nativity of the Mother of God in the St. Therapont Monastery (Dionysius, 1502–1503). Since the 16th century icons depicting the Old Testament forefathers with scrolls in hands have been placed in a separate forefathers’ row of the iconostasis, as for example, on the 1600 icon of St. Forefather Enoch from the iconostasis at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius.
Saint Enoch is commemorated on the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers and Fathers.
Zhanna G. Belik,
Ph.D. in Art history, senior research fellow at the Andrei Rublyov Museum, custodian of the tempera painting collection.
Olga E. Savchenko,
research fellow at the Andrei Rublyov Museum.
Bibliography:
1. Воронцова Л.М. Иконы и фрески Троицкого Собора. Свято-Троицкая Лавра, 2003.
2. Евсеева Л.М. Афонская книга образцов XV века. М., 1998. С. 205 (№ 45).