A very important event happened to Master 15 years ago. A Knight of the Holy Sepulchre, Father Alexander of Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre visited Master’s home. Father Alexander’s direct duties included looking after, cleaning up, and daily sealing of the Edicule of the Holy Sepulchre.

 

That day, they talked a lot about Patriarch Diodorus’s exceptional love for Russia, the Russian Orthodox Church, and its people. That is when the decision to create a portrait of Patriarch Diodorus on a precious stone was made.

 

Master has put much love in this work and used transparent red spinel, a mineral first synthesized by Master himself. Master included a photograph of the portrait in his monograph “Optical Armoured Ceramics. Spinel.”