Joy of All Joys Tenderness Theotokos Iconographic Based on Traditional Orthodox Iconography | Red Design | Orthodox Christian Long Sleeve ShirtThe Tenderness Icon is remarkable since the Theotokos is depicted without her Child, or even before His conception at the moment of the Archangel's greeting, when she is the Most Pure Vessel of the Holy Spirit Saint Seraphim [of Sarov] commanded us to call this Tenderness Icon [the one he kept in his cell], the Joy of all Joys. Fr. Pavel Florensky

This design is my tribute to his memory

The Church is the earthly paradise in which grow the trees of life

and weighs him down

According as his divine power has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness

- Isaiah 65:17

The Chi Rho itself points to Christ-as-Sun more specifically: both St Justin the Martyr and the Didache refer to its X shape as pointing to the line of the ecliptic (the pattern drawn across the sky by the sun over the course of a year) where it intersects the horizon

bondage in which you endured a great deal of toil and hardship

and in the Prayers for the Sick

do not trust the flesh

whether age or any other existing thing

to be buried

and the everlasting Kingdom of Heaven will dawn