''Epitaphios'',19th century - a composition on cloth, "The Lamentation of Christ" - depiction of Christ’s descent from the cross.

''Epitaphios'',19th century - a composition on cloth, "The Lamentation of Christ" - depiction of Christ’s descent from the cross.
"Ephitaphios" is the name for an ecclesiastical object, a cloth of symbolic significance, which in the Orthodox Church is taken from the altar during the services on Good Friday and Great Saturday and placed on the "burial mound" - as a symbol of the "great stone." It symbolises the "Holy Cloth' on which, according to the four Gospels, the body of the Saviour descending from the cross was laid and then "wrapped" by by Joseph of Arimathea before he was buried. This is why the dead Christ descending from the cross and resting on a stone, surrounded by angels and weeping relatives, is depicted on the "Epithapios".

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