The History of the “Parsuna”-Icon of Saint Pancratius of Tauromenia from the Collection of the State Russian Museum: Research Problems

Analysis of the few published sources and scientific works devoted to the icon of the Holy Martyr Pancratius of Tauromenia (Taormina) from the collection of the State Russian Museum, the identification of monuments “related” to it, the restoration of the events of the epoch of its creation and the beginning of its existence, the study of the inscription on the back of the icon and the clarification of its dating did not reveal traces of the presence of the icon and the veneration of St. Pancratius in the family of Duke Alexei Mikhailovich Cherkassky and Maria Yuryevna Trubetskoy and their daughter Varvara, married to Petr B. Sheremetev, showed the need to search in the archives, forced us to look for alternative versions of the history of its creation and the first owners. The study of related monuments, the outline of events and the connection of the Holy Martyr Pancratius with the Apostle Peter may indicate an earlier creation of the icon, at the end of the 17th — beginning of the 18th centuries, and the first owners with the name Peter. In the life of A. M. Cherkassky, these names marked the Kremlin and Tobolsk periods of his family’s history: that was the name of his elder brother, who died in Siberia, married to the daughter of Boris A. Golitsyn, as well as two (?) Alexei Mikhailovich’s own sons from his first marriage to A. L. Naryshkina. The version that the icon could have belonged to the family of his elder brother, Peter, is confirmed by the presence in the Archangel Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin of another icon depicting St. Pancratius (“The Lord Sabaoth with the saints”), the patronal list of which partly correlates with the names of the Cherkassky-Golitsyn-Musin-Pushkin’s family.