The Elias mystery - Mount Athos to St Davids

"The Elias Mystery - Mount Athos to St Davids" Prof Nassis (on video} and Mari James, St Davids Cathedral Library. In South transept, with icon painting of Elijah.

In the south transept of St Davids Cathedral is a large striking icon style painting of Elijah and The Ravens in the Cave. This session will consider what this painting is, how old it might be, what original it might be based on, why it is in the cathedral, and also the mystery of the script and what it might mean. It is clearly a Cyrillic script but it has been a mystery to many who have studied it, what it actually says.

A year ago, during in September 2025, St Davids was delighted to host the annual meeting of the International Commission for Anglican-Orthodox Theological Dialogue. We were fortunate that one of the participants was a leading scholar in the icons of Mount Athos and we asked him to address this mystery for us. Protopresbyter Nassis of the Aristotle University of Thessoloniki, and representative at the Dialogue meeting of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, spoke to us about his findings and views on video.

That video will be shared at this session along with the research on the Elias icon over many years by W J James.

In both Welsh and Greek the equivalent of the name Elijah - is Elias.