A publication by Mariam Gvelesiani, a research fellow at the Tamaz Beradze Institute of Kartvelology, University of Georgia, has been published in the journal Iconographica - Studies in the History of Images (Florence: SISMEL - Edizioni del Galluzzo).
The article, titled “Christ as the Sun-God and the Seasons in Medieval Georgian Spirituality,” examines a rare iconographic representation of Christ as the spiritual sun, preserved in the 9th-century façade paintings of the Akhura Church.
The study traces the concept of Christ as the spiritual sun to Old Testament solar metaphors and the Gospel of Luke the Evangelist, while also highlighting its deeper roots in ancient Near Eastern religious traditions. The doctrine of Christ as the spiritual sun (Christus Oriens, Anatolē, Sol Justitiae, etc.) is reflected in both Byzantine and Georgian hymnography and textual sources of the 9th–11th centuries.
In this iconographic scheme, the figure of Helios is replaced by Christ within a radial zodiac composition, with symbolic representations of the four seasons positioned at the corners. This imagery expresses the early Christian idea of Christ-Helios—the source of both physical and spiritual light—while the ever-turning seasons symbolize eternal life for Christians.
The electronic version of the article is available at the following link: (PDF) Christ as the Sun-God and the Seasons in Medieval Georgian Spirituality
