The Anastasis, which shows Christ breaking through the gates of Hell, releasing those who believed in him before his Incarnation, is the Easter image in the Orthodox Church. Images of the Anastasis were first seen in the eighth century; the Fieschi Morgan Staurotheke is an early example of the Anastasis. By the eleventh century, a fixed iconography of the Anastasis had developed although variations certainly existed. At the center of the image, Christ walks over the destroyed gates of Hell; occasionally, Christ's triumph is made more explicit by the addition of an image of Christ treading upon a chained personification of Hades. The figures of Adam, Eve, and sometimes Seth emerging from sarcophagi on one side and David, Solomon, and John the Baptist on the other flank the central image of Christ. As a central image of the Great Feast cycle, the Anastasis appears in all media. BLR

COMPARANDA
Anastasis (Daphni)
Anastasis (Hosios Loukas)
Anastasis (Chora Monastery)
Anastasis (Nea Moni)
Fieschi Morgan Staurotheke (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzos
Pendant Icon with the Anastasis (Moscow, "Moscow Kremlin")

BIBLIOGRAPHY
"Anastasis." Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Ed. Alexander Kazhdan. 3 vols. New York: Oxford University Press. 88.

Kartsonis, Anna. Anastasis: The Making of an Image. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986.