Is it true that Pope Francis was offended by receiving a “satanic icon” as a gift from Zelensky?

In mid -May 2023, the Russian -language segment of Telegram and a number of large media outlets spread that the Pope was allegedly unhappy with the gifts of the President of Ukraine. We checked whether such statements have grounds.

Since May 17, Russian media Published A number of materials that claim that the Pope Francis was offended by the gifts of the President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky. Such articles came out, for example, in TASS, "Arguments and facts", on Lenta.ru. The headlines ranged from neutral ("Zelensky and Pope exchanged unsuccessful gifts") before expressive ("Media: Zelensky inflicted an insult to the pope with his gift"). The essence of all publications came down to the fact that during the visit of Zelensky he presented to the pope “The Mother of God with the painted black paint Christ, a little”, which symbolizes the loss of Ukrainian children. According to the authors of notes in the media, Francis allegedly considered such a gift offensive, since "for all Christians, the" loss "of Jesus means the loss of the Messiah and the meaning of the existence of the Church itself." Some Facebook users on the same day They called it A gift of Zelensky “adorus icon”, accusing him of Satanism, and one of the many publications in Livejournal went under heading “Zelensky gave the pope an image of Astarta with Antichrist” (Astarta is a Greek version of the name of the goddess Ishtar, closely related With the myth of a dying and reviving God. - approx. Ed.). In Telegram, according to the TGSTAT service, the plot is most widely spread in the period from 17 to 21 - in particular, post channel "Ukraine.ru" (394,000 views at the time of writing this analysis) were shared by TV presenters Vladimir Solovyov (280,000) and Artyom Sheinin (102,000). Like Facebook, the gift of Zelensky was also called “frank blasphemy” and “Satanism” in Telegram, claiming that it used to be so supposedly They wrote Black (adescript) icons: "Black silhouettes, for evil does not have a face on a red background."

Offended dad

On May 13, 2023, Vladimir Zelensky met with Pope Francis in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican. During the visit of the Ukrainian leader, they exchanged gifts. Dad gave the President of Ukraine a bronze olive branch symbolizing the world, "A document on the human fraternity in the name of the world throughout the world and coexistence"(This declaration in 2019 was signed by Francis and the Supreme Imam Al-Azhara, Sheikh Ahmed At-Taiba), microcroding about papal Statio Orbis of March 27, 2020 and "Encyclic about the world in Ukraine." With some variations, this is more or less standard kitwho is dad Persons high -ranking guests. Zelensky handed over to Francis the work of Ukrainian artists stylized for the icons: the picture of Alexei Reviks “Loss, 2022-58” (the number 58 means the 58th day of the war, so the artist marks the paintings from the series for more than a year) and the painted plate from the body armor with the name of the artist Yuri Vakulenko. 

News in Russian media on May 13 were quite neutral and retold with different accents publication On the official website Vatican News. The subtext of gifts is quite clear both from the pope and Zelensky: Francis, condemning the war and praying for the dead Ukrainians, does not declare the direct support of Ukraine and speaks of the need for a peaceful settlement of the conflict, and the work of the revision donated by Zelensky symbolically speaks of the losses of the country (number 205 in the picture symbolizes 205 children who died as a result of military operations at the time of the writing of “loss” in April 2022), which is a kind of message to the “induced” pope.

The publications that the works of art brought to the Vatican “insulted” the pontiff first appeared only four days after the visit of Zelensky. Their primary source - comment Left publicist and former senator Rannyuro La Valle on the website of the daily newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano, openly occupied In the spring of 2022, the Posoputinsky position. La Valle is an ardent supporter of Francis, in 2015 he wrote about dad a book, and in 2022 initiated the signing of an open Letters To the pontiff with a request to take the role of a peacekeeper in negotiations between Moscow and Washington. The publicist himself openly accuses NATO of unleashing the war in Ukraine, regularly criticizes Vladimir Zelensky and opposes the help of Kyiv from the European Union. 

La Valle himself was not present at the meeting of Zelensky and Francis, there are also no open evidence of his close communication with the dad in recent years that could indirectly indicate that the author of the column in Il Fatto Quotidiano could know about the attitude of Pontica to gifts. Nevertheless, in his text, the publicist says that "the image of the Virgin donated by Zelensky denies the crucified and risen Christ." La Valle also admits two factual distortions, which will then lead the Russian media and bloggers to Satanism: in his description, he combines the features of two pontiffs presented to one, claiming that the picture “Loss” was written on the plate from the body armor, and calls it an icon. 

“The icon written on the plate from the body armor” - sounds quite unexpectedly, but the Orthodox canon does not limit the icon painter in the choice of the material on which the image will be applied, and “armored icons” are by no means fiction. For example, May 23, Primate of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Metropolitan Epiphanius consecrated 12 icons written on plates from body armor. 

These icons were written by a group of Ukrainian artists "Artarmore", Which has been using armored plastin, transmitted to them from the front line instead of the canvas for some time, using icon -painting techniques and plots. The pontiff's “non -powerful” artist Vakulenko is one of these works. But she could not be consecrated for two reasons: firstly, purely chronologically, secondly, all the icons consecrated by Epiphanie are strictly designed in accordance with the Orthodox canon, which cannot be said about the work of Vakulenko. In the strict sense, an icon in principle Can't neither the work of Vakulenko, nor the work of the audits, which is generally called part A large conceptual series, for which icon painting is only one of the motives.

It is characteristic that La Valle does not use In the text of his publication, the words “offended” or “offensive”. He calls Zelensky gifts only “erroneous”, this is also reflected in the heading, which is literally translated as “Zelensky was mistaken even with dad gifts”. Apparently, the statements of the insult of Francis, apparently, appeared already in later retelling of the column.

Neither dad himself nor sources in the Vatican publicly or anonymously expressed dissatisfaction with Zelensky gifts. And “loss, 2022-58” and “unopened” are mentioned in the official report of the meeting and shown in Video on the official Vatican News channel, while in the description of all affordable Languages ​​of the site both works are called "works of art." All the publications we have found about the offended dad in English and Italian refer to Il Fatto Quotidiano or are translations of the later texts of the Russian media. Judging by the publications available on the Web, the feelings of Raniero La Valle himself were most affected.

Not true

Satanic icon

Satanism in Zelensky gifts on May 16 Considered Publicist Roman Golovanov. With its presentation, this version began to disperse first on Facebook, after Blogsand then in Telegram and in Media. Following La Walle Golovanov also mixed two works on one, and the painting of the revision of his revision also turned out to be "written on the remnants of the body armor."

The publications followed by the post of Golovanov added to the description the epithets “Adiprist” and “Black”.

At the same time, the adaptive and black icons are terms with a specific meaning. In folklorism and art criticism adipus icon Described as a subject of black magic. Allegedly, a canonical image is applied to the image of demons and Satan (or any other hellish plot) on top, and the person who prays such an icon thinks that he prays to the saint or the Virgin, but actually offers praise to the devil. The existence of adip signal icons does not have sufficient evidence and is listed as folklorists in the category of myths. Blacks are by no means called adaptable icons, but simply icons that darkened from time (respectively, icons are called red after restoration). It is in this sense that the phrase “black icon” is used, for example, in Description Flooding by the Russian Orthodox Church of the Sovereign Icon of the Mother of God. Connitation of the black icon as Satanin, judging by the available data and search in the National Corps of the Russian Language, - a subcultural remake, Marketing The invention for connoisseurs of neopagan esotericism and musical genres, which one way or another associate themselves with the demonic principle.

Thus, the statement of the satanic essence of the work of Ukrainian artists is unfounded. Before us is a series of distortions. First, one of the works with a reference to icon painting is called an icon in the press, then two author, Russian and Italian, superficially familiarizing themselves with the description of Zelensky’s visit to Papa Francis, mix two works into one, and under the influence of bias and a number of superstitions, bloggers give birth to a final fantastic plot.

Image on the cover: More on / Pixabay

Not true

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