The Armenian Cathedral in Lviv houses a painting by Jan Henryk Rosen depicting the funeral of St. Odilon, the 11th century abbot of the Benedictine monastery of Cluny, who according to tradition instituted All Saints’ Day. The Funeral of St. Odilon is unique because of its unusual iconography, and it is also artistically superior to other paintings from the Armenian Cathedral.

In the painting three life-size figures of monks carry the body of the deceased church official on the bier. At the head of the procession is the abbot in pontifical attire, supporting himself on a pastoral, and two altar servers walk behind. Both the deceased and the three ghostly hooded figures accompanying the procession can be identified by the poetic inscription on the bier, reading: “O holy Odilon, patron of dead souls, we the crowd of the dead follow your coffin”. These are the first four lines of a poem written by the poet Kazimiera Iłłakowiczówna as her impression after seeing the easel version of Rosen's painting displayed at the Zachęta National Gallery in Warsaw in 1925.

The deceased dignitary is St. Odilon, and the transparent figures are the spirits of the dead who, out of gratitude for his having established All Saints' Day, accompany St. Odilon on his last journey. The abbot leading the procession, according to tradition, is St. Majolus, said to be St. Odilon's successor on the abbot's throne at Cluny (while in fact his successor was St. Hugo). The majestic figures of the participants in the procession, the mournful, pensive expression on their faces and the dark, black and purple colour scheme of the painting emphasize the sombre mood.

The spirits of the dead in the funeral procession
The funeral procession in J.H. Rosen's painting is accompanied by a group of ingeniously rendered spirits of the dead. Their appearance and the context in which they are depicted is a reference to late medieval Burgundian art. The ghostly figures are pleurants, weepers, who according to the Burgundian tradition escorted significant personages to their eternal resting place. The two most famous examples of Burgundian tombstones featuring pleurants are the tomb of Philip the Bold by Claus Sluter and that of Philip Pot, attributed to Antoine Le Moiturier. It was on these that Rosen’s weepers are modelled, some very accurately.

The depiction of the ghosts – white-contoured, translucent phantoms – won the greatest admiration from the spectators. Rosen recalled that he had got the inspiration for the ghosts simply... in a dream: "[...] in an old castle, in a tower, in France, in central France it was, I went there for the New Year, to visit friends. [...] I had a room up high in this tower. And [...] I woke up early, I don't know why. And I was surprised, I sat up in bed. And this figure came out of the wall. It was transparent, as if wearing a hood, carrying a light. It was such greenish light. And he passed by me at the foot of the bed. Very slowly. I was looking at him with curiosity, because [...] I was very surprised. I wasn't scared at all. And he went by, and disappeared in the other wall. When it [ended], then I got scared. I didn't know what to do with myself. [...] I got out of bed and ran up to my friend’s room nearby and I woke him up. He scolded me terribly, but they’d been there, I’d seen that. [...] And that is the ghost I painted in Lviv in the Armenian Cathedral. Except there are... three of them, carrying these candles and they don't have that greenish light, because it's impossible to reproduce".

St. Odilon's funeral and the Apocalypse
An interesting feature of the painting is the series of tapestries hanging between the columns of the cloister arcade forming the backdrop to the procession. The tapestries are richly decorated, woven or embroidered and, judging from the fragments visible between the hooded figures, represent scenes from the Apocalypse. This constitutes a reference to the funeral, and even, as it were, its continuation, i.e. an allusion to the Last Judgement which awaits the deceased, and the vision of which has already accompanied him in the funeral liturgy in the form of the „Dies irae” hymn.

J.H. Rosen tried to preserve the scene’s medieval character even in small details, and he copied almost in their entirety (and with astonishing accuracy!) four miniatures from the Bamberg Apocalypse, an illuminated manuscript from the 11th century, more or less contemporary with St. Odilon.

Interpretations of The Funeral of St. Odilon
The scene of St. Odilon's funeral depicted by Rosen fired the imagination of his contemporaries because of its unusual character and mystery, and various interpretations were put on the painting. Stanisław Machniewicz wrote: "The three figures of monks carrying the bier represent three degrees of religious initiation. The first one, wrapped in a hood, does not yet seem to hear the voice from beyond, the second one, with burning, focused pupils, is looking towards happiness detached from this world, and the third one is already walking in mystical concentration and listening to what only the chosen souls are allowed to see and hear".

It is known from oral accounts that the identification of the middle monk as Fr. Adam Bogdanowicz referred the "three degrees of initiation" directly to his person and his path to priesthood (this is how his mother, Wanda Bogdanowicz, is said to have interpreted the painting). The other persons depicted in the painting are (most probably): Dr Fr. Karol Csesznák as "St. Majolus" leading the procession, and Fr. Leon Isakowicz as the first monk carrying the bier. The two clerics at the end of the procession may have been the Borkowski brothers, or, according to another version, one of them was Fr. Tadeusz Fedorowicz.

The above 'traditional' identification of persons is confirmed, but also partly modified and supplemented, by the inscription on the back of the photograph of the painting found in Fr. Fedorowicz's archives. According to it, one of the altar servers is Fr. Andrzej Głażewski, the monk looking back is Fr. Bogdanowicz, the other monk is Fr. Isakowicz, the procession is led by Fr. Csesznák and lying on the bier is Cardinal Desiré-Joseph Mercier.

The fact that clergymen from Lviv were portrayed in this scene was also confirmed by a source contemporary to the creation of the paintings. Sister Maria Renata of Christ wrote: "[...] six monks (portraits of Armenian clergymen well-known in Lviv) carry the corpse of St. Odilon on their shoulders (portrait of the saintly Cardinal Mercier, who died while this painting was being made)". The identification of the facial features of the abbot leading the procession is further confirmed by Fr. Franciszek Małaczyński OSB, alumnus of the Lviv Theological Seminary, writing: "On the painting The Funeral of St. Odilon [...] the body of the deceased abbot is carried by the canons of the Armenian Cathedral dressed in Benedictine garb, and the abbot leading the procession has the face of Father Karol Csesznák – teacher of catechetics at the Theological Faculty of John Casimir University in Lviv ...".

Reception of the painting The Funeral of St. Odilon
The idea of portraying contemporary people in the painting was very well received. If one is to believe the accounts of the time and the memoirs written years later by former residents of Lviv, it was probably the most appealing of all the compositions painted in the cathedral. This was probably due to the extraordinary combination of the mysterious subject matter with its unique artistic shape, perfectly suited to the content.

The painting was perfectly placed in the middle of the northern wall of the nave and immediately attracted the attention of the spectators, and the little known theme provoked conjecture and made the work an object of general interest. It is no wonder that the painting soon became legendary.

In 2006 restoration works began in the Armenian Cathedral in Lviv, thanks to funds from the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. In the last 15 years numerous activities have been carried out, including the protection and restoration of all the paintings by Jan Henryk Rosen (including the fresco The Funeral of St Odilon). In 2018-2019 the POLONIKA Institute also participated in the works carried out in the Cathedral.

Adapted from: Joanna Wolańska, The Armenian Cathedral in Lviv in 1902-1938. Architectural changes and interior decoration. MKiDN, Warsaw, 2010.

http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/artdok/1975/1/Wolanska_Katedra_ormianska_we_Lwowie_2010.pdf