The Anastasis - the Greek word for Resurrection - is the most theologically distinctive image in the entire repertoire of Byzantine sacred art and one of the most powerful theological statements in the history of Christian visual culture. Where Western Christianity developed the Resurrection primarily as the empty tomb, the risen Christ appearing to his disciples, Eastern Christianity focused on a different and more dramatic moment: the descent of Christ into Hades between his death and resurrection, and his violent seizure of the human dead from the power of death.
The textual basis is scattered but substantial. 1 Peter 3:18-19 states that Christ, 'being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the Spirit... went and proclaimed to the imprisoned spirits.' Ephesians 4:8-9 quotes Psalm 68:18 - 'When he ascended on high, he took many captives' - as evidence that before the ascent, Christ 'also descended to the lower, earthly regions.' Acts 2:27 (quoting Psalm 16:10) has Christ declaring, 'You will not abandon me to the realm of the dead.' The Apostles' Creed includes the phrase 'he descended to hell.' The apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus (4th-5th century) elaborated this tradition into a dramatic narrative: Christ shatters the gates of Hades, binds Satan, and liberates the souls of the righteous dead.
The standard Anastasis image type crystallized in Byzantine art by the 9th century and remained consistent in its essential elements for the next six centuries. Christ stands in a dynamic, striding posture above the shattered doors of Hades - the crossed gates of death, often shown broken off their hinges, nails and locks scattered in the darkness below. With one or both hands he grasps the wrists of Adam and Eve, hauling them upward from their tombs. Behind them, other righteous figures from the Old Testament - David, Solomon, John the Baptist, the prophets - await their liberation. In the darkness beneath Christ's feet, Satan is bound in chains.
The theological force of the image is considerable. Salvation in this Orthodox vision is not primarily forensic (the legal satisfaction of divine justice, as in much Western soteriology) but ontological: Christ enters death from within, conquers it on its own ground, and in seizing Adam and Eve seizes the entire human race. The grip of Christ's hands on human wrists is the defining gesture of Eastern Christian soteriology: God takes hold of humanity, not merely offering deliverance but actively effecting it.
The finest surviving Anastasis is the fresco in the parekklesion of the Chora Church in Istanbul, dating to around 1320, where the striding white-robed figure of Christ and the dynamic composition of liberation is rendered at its most dramatic and technically refined. Panel icons of the Anastasis, spanning from the 9th century through the present day, are found throughout Eastern Christian churches and homes.
Icons of the Anastasis are found in any Eastern Orthodox church and in museum collections worldwide. The most significant panel icons are in the Byzantine and Christian Museum in Athens, the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, and the collections of Mount Athos monasteries.