The Copy of the Chełm Icon of Mother of God in the Orthodox Church in Klesztów. Dating, Direct Inspiration, Cult

The article is a synthetic monograph of the, so far only mentioned, copy of the Chelm icon of Mother of God, which was located in the former Orthodox Church of the Assumption of Virgin Mary in Klesztow near Chelm. Controversies concerning the dating of the preserved paint layers of the icon were considered, which was not facilitated by the ambiguous results of the last conservation studies (1993). In this context, a detailed comparative analysis of the Klesztow icon was conducted, including with two poorly-known copies of the Chelm icon of Mother of God – namely the oil painting of Podhorce collection of Waclaw Rzewuski (1746) and the devotional engraving (1765), now in a private collection. Whilst reconstructing the cult of the copy of Klesztow, the relationship between Weglenscy from Klesztow and Waclaw Rzewuski, the personal attitude of the latter toward the Chelm and Klesztow icons, as well as the apotropaic function attributed in the Commonwealth of Poland not only to the original, but also to its copies, worshiped by both the faithful of the Orthodox Church and the Latins, were analysed.