page_title: Palladium (protective image)
section_title: Christian palladia
hierarchical_section_title: Palladium (protective image) / Christian palladia
caption_attribution_description: English: An encaustic painting entitled Abgar [of Edessa] receiving the Mandylion from Thaddeus. Русский: Энкаустическая икона. Верхняя часть левой створки триптиха с утраченным средником. «Авгарь получает Нерукотворный Образ от апостола Фаддея».
context_page_description: A palladium or palladion is an image or other object of great antiquity on which the safety of a city or nation is said to depend. The word is a generalization from the name of the original Trojan Palladium, a wooden statue of Pallas Athena that Odysseus and Diomedes stole from the citadel of Troy and which was supposedly later taken to the future site of Rome by Aeneas, where it remained until perhaps transferred to Constantinople and lost sight of after the conversion of the Empire to Christianity.
  In English, since around 1600, the word "palladium" has been used figuratively to mean anything believed to provide protection or safety, and in particular in Christian contexts a sacred relic or icon believed to have a protective role in military contexts for a whole city, people or nation. Such beliefs first become prominent in the Eastern Churches in the period after the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I, and later spread to the Western church. Palladia were processed around the walls of besieged cities and sometimes carried into battle. In this more offensive role they may also be referred to as "vexilla".
context_section_description: Around the end of the 6th century the first references to Christian palladia start to appear.  The Image of Edessa in Armenian Mesopotamia, or Mandylion, later moved to Constantinople, is one of the first and long the most famous examples. This was later credited with the failure of the Persian siege of Edessa in 544.  But the image is not mentioned in the account of Procopius, writing soon after the event, and first appears as the agent of the failure in the history of Evagrius Scholasticus of about 593.  Specific icons, especially those of the Virgin Mary or Virgin and Child became credited with specialist functions, with their veneration aiding against disease or other misfortunes, and the military role of palladium was an example of this.
  Beliefs attributing particular icons as palladia were found especially in the Eastern Churches, and have remained particularly powerful in Russian Orthodoxy, where a number of icons protected different cities. Important public officials in Imperial Russia would have an insignia that signified their status and authority ; this was treated with very great respect. In Celtic Christianity, palladia were more often relics that were typically possessions of a saint, such as books, bells, belts and croziers, all housed in reliquaries. In Ireland, these functioned as the battle standards of clans rather than protecting a city.  They were sometimes carried into battle in their reliquaries or cumdach, hanging by a chain around the neck of a member of the clan. In the Western church, such beliefs have declined even in Catholic countries since the Reformation, and have disappeared in Protestant beliefs. 
  The Byzantine palladia, which first appear in the late 6th century, cannot be said to have had a very successful track record, as apart from Constantinople most major cities in Egypt, Syria and later Anatolia fell to Muslim attacks.  Just before the start of the Byzantine Iconoclasm an incident of what might be called a "reverse-palladium" is recorded.  According to Iconoclast sources an officer called Constantine, defending Nicaea against an Arab siege in 727, smashed an icon of the Virgin, and this saved the city. The Iconodule sources also record the incident, but say that Constantine was promptly killed, and the city saved by other icons, including the famous series of 318 portraits of participants in the First Council of Nicaea which adorned the hall where the council had met in 325.
  The Image of Camuliana was an icon of Christ which was the earliest important palladium of Constantinople after it reached the city in 574, but seems to have been destroyed in the Byzantine Iconoclasm.
  The Virgin Hodegetria — an ancient Madonna and Child image — was the traditional protectress of Byzantine Constantinople. At times of siege it was paraded along the city walls. At the final fall of the city (1453) it failed to deter the Turks, was pillaged, and disappeared forever.
  The Cathach of St. Columba, a 6th-century Irish psalter, processed round the troops and carried into battle ("Cathach" means "battler") by the O'Donnell Clan, carried round the neck in its cumdach.
  Theotokos of Vladimir, a Byzantine icon of the Virgin considered the protectress of Moscow in particular, and Russia in general, now in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.  It was in particular credited with saving Moscow from the attack of Tamerlane in 1395, and the Tatar armies in 1451 and 1480.
  Our Lady of the Sign, protector of Novgorod, and especially credited with saving the city in the Battle of the Novgorodians with the Suzdalians in 1169, which was probably soon after it was painted.
  The Girdle of Thomas or Sacra Cintola, supposed the belt of the Virgin Mary, paraded round the city of Prato near Florence in 1402 when a Milanese army threatened, and perhaps on other occasions.
  Our Lady of Kazan, a holy icon, considered the protectress of Russia and lost in 1904, though copies were used to bolster the morale of troops in both World Wars.
caption: 10th century icon of the Image of Edessa, with King Abgar V of the legend shown as Emperor Constantine VII who brought the image to Constantinople in 944
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