‘The Universal Trinity’

Universal-Trinity
Oil on canvas with 23ct oil gilding, 107 by 86.5 cm

Commissioned by Holy Trinity Church, Potten End, Berkhamsted, Herts.

Within the underlying geometric structure of Rublev’s icon of the Old Testament Trinity,  I was able to discern and make explicit the symbols of the three main Abrahamic religions; The Christian Cross, the Jewish Star of David and the Islamic Crescent Moon. To the best of my knowledge this ‘epiphany of symbols’ within this famous icon  have not been noted before.

diagram
Diagram: the Star of David (blue), Three crosses – Slavic, Greek and Latin (yellow) and the Islamic crescent (green) within a universal circle (red).

There are also three types of Cross that can be seen in this image and which represent the main Christian denominations; the Latin Cross of the West, The Russian Orthodox Cross (but without the angled foot bar) and the equal-armed Greek Orthodox Cross.

The purpose and function of revealing these symbols was to emphasise the message of universal spiritual unity, tolerance and a co-dependence borne of  a shared spiritual ancestry  –  all of which could be argued to conform to the essence of Rublev’s vision. This is a work to promote interfaith dialogue.

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