Communion of the Apostles and Its Iconographic Variants: Reassessing the Met Epimanikia (10.168.1 and 10.168.2)

The Communion of the Apostles is a theme common to Byzantine icons, textiles, and mural cycles. Two embroidered epimanikia, or liturgical cuffs, now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art display this subject not uncommon to such liturgical objects worn by Orthodox priests during liturgical celebrations. The Met cuffs, however, present a variant of the theme that suggests, as I argue in this paper, a different original form and function for these two objects--different from the ones assumed once the embroideries were trimmed and paired. In exploring the iconographical variants of the Communion of the Apostles theme, especially as they appeared on liturgical embroideries beginning in the fifteenth century in the Byzantine-Slavic cultural sphere, I seek to reconstruct the original forms and functions of the Met cuffs.