A friend brought back the above icon of the Archangel Oriel (also known as Uriel) from Greece, and gave it to me for Christmas. I immediately loved it, not least because I have never seen an icon of that archangel. Archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael I had heard of, but not Oriel. There’s a reason for this: in 745, the Council of Rome struck Oriel’s name from the list of Archangels commemorated by the Western church. He remained recognized in the Eastern church.

Oriel/Uriel means “light of God” or “fire of God,” hence the image above, of the Archangel bearing fire in his hand. In the Orthodox Church, the blessing of icons typically involves a short formal prayer said by a priest, and the use of holy water, but also can involve the icon being placed upon the altar during a Divine Liturgy. A couple of weeks ago, I took this icon to church, and gave it to our priest with the request that he place it on the altar and bless it. He did place it on the altar at that liturgy, but said afterward that he would need to do the formal blessing. I figured I would pick it up on the next Sunday or so.

As it happened, this past Sunday I was ill and couldn’t make it to liturgy. My wife brought it home to me. Last night I was preparing to say my prayers, and admiring the icon, when I thought, “That face of the Archangel looks familiar. Where have I seen it before?”

Then I remembered the Macedonian film I saw on Sunday afternoon, Before The Rain, which I wrote about here. This is the young Orthodox monk in the first part of the film, Kiril, played by the French actor Grégoire Colin:

Not a perfect likeness, but still, it made me smile.