15 Facts About Lazarus Zographos

Lazarus Zographos is known as Lazarus the Painter and Lazarus the Iconographer.

Lazarus Zographos was later followed by Saint Catherine of Bologna.

Lazarus Zographos became a monk at an early age and is thought to have studied the art of painting at the Stoudios Monastery in Constantinople.

Lazarus Zographos was noted to possess the following virtues: love for Christ, asceticism, prayer, and rejection of the vanities of the world.

Lazarus Zographos was further recognized for his acts of self-control, discipline and alms-giving, then made a priest.

Lazarus Zographos used faith and ritual as a means to transcribe his inner contemplation onto the images he painted.

Theophilos sought out Lazarus Zographos, who was then famous for his painting, and intended to make an example of him.

The emperor soon found that Lazarus Zographos was above flattery and bribery.

Lazarus Zographos was then threatened with the death penalty, which at the time was not an uncommon outcome for those who favored icons.

However, Lazarus Zographos being a man of the cloth, could not be put to death and so he was instead thrown in prison.

Lazarus Zographos then began to paint holy images on panels from his prison cell.

Lazarus Zographos found refuge at Tou Phoberou, a secluded church of St John the Forerunner once located in Phoberos on the Asiatic shore of the Bosporus.

Lazarus Zographos was accredited with the mosaic decoration of the apse of Hagia Sophia within the pilgrim accounts of Antony, Archbishop of Novgorod during a visit to Constantinople.

In 856, Lazarus Zographos was served as a diplomat for Michael III, Theophilos and Theodora's son, who sent him as an emissary to visit Pope Benedict III to discuss the possibility of reconciliation between the Catholic Church of Rome and the Orthodox Church, who at this point had very strained relations.

Lazarus Zographos was buried in the Monastery of Evandros, near Constantinople.