Source: Macomb Daily
June 26, 2016
When Vlasios Tsotsonis saw what a fire had done to the holy images at Assumption Greek Orthodox Church in St. Clair Shores his heart ached.
The parishioners were devastated.
But he saw past the smoke and charred walls to the beauty of the church’s architecture moving him to create something that would bring life back.
“It was the most difficult project I have ever done,” said Tsotsonis speaking through his interpreter, Harriet Stoukas of Eastpointe, who is a parishioner at the church. “It was psychologically difficult and the structure was a challenge, the dome is very large. I was concerned it might not turn out.”
Then the scaffolding was removed and the holy images that he spent more than a decade painting filled the church with a light that shone over him and the parishioners.
“My work is done,” he said, with a warm-hearted smile enjoying the reception marking its completion.
“It’s stunning,” said Rev. Michael Varlamos, who is the young pastor that was sent by the bishop to help restore the church. “My part was to see that it was theologically and traditionally accurate to the Orthodox. He would tell me about colors and I would talk about saints. I saw renderings so I could visualize it but to see it after the scaffolding came down? It was just breathtaking.”
In 2002, a fire caused $3.5 million in damages including the collection of paintings that told the story of Christianity, called iconography. Afterwards, a committee was formed to seek an iconographer to recreate and restore them. As it turned out, while visiting a mutual friend in Greece the reverend saw a painting of Christ that had him awestruck.
“It was the most beautiful depiction of God I had ever seen,” Varlamos said. “So, I asked my friend about the artist.”
Tsotsonis is the son of farmers born in Velon Korinthias in Greece in 1951. As a boy he was always religious and fascinated by the colors of the holy images he saw in church.
“I always visualized doing something for the Lord,” he said.
He studied fine arts in Athens and mosaic aesthetics in Italy before becoming a renowned iconographer whose artistry has been commissioned around the world, from the Church of Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem to the Monastery of St. Stephen in Greece.
After a long search Assumption’s committee found Tsotsonis. However, Europe’s “Painter of Angels,” as he’s known, was in such demand they had to wait several years for him to come. The first phase of his work, involving drawings on the walls in charcoal or canvas paintings glued to the surface, began with the altar area and his paintings of the Virgin Mary holding Jesus.
“The Virgin Mary is always depicted in the apse,” Varlamos said. “We believe that she brought Jesus Christ to earth and that it is through her intersession that we ascend to heaven. She is the ladder.”
Helping to support the project (2009-2016) through fundraisers and donations was committee member Joan DeRonne, who took the opportunity when the scaffolding was removed to bask in its light.
“I had to sit down. Its beauty is transcending,” she said. “We have been so busy doing the work necessary and to finally be able to sit back and see the project come to an end, words cannot describe the joy I felt toward the artist and his assistants (Niko Gaitanidis and Ilia Brako). They worked day and night and the love they put into this project shows. It truly surpasses all of my expectations.”
Varlamos agreed.
The evangelists write the word of God but it is the iconographers who illustrate it, he explained.
“It is a gift but also charis (Greek for grace),” Varlamos said of Tsotsonis’ talents.
As for what inspires him?
“I heard him say in Greek, “God leans on my elbow and I’m able to draw,’” Varlamos said.
Assumption Greek Orthodox Church is at 21800 Marter Road in St. Clair Shores.
