A Silver Polycandelon

On important feast days, we light the lamps on a polycandelon, or oil lamp chandelier, made of silver and partially gilt. Two tiers of branches in the form of dragons support the lamps, with a double headed eagle on top, and a round finial beneath. The whole is covered with a profuse  decoration of stylized plants and flowers executed in low relief.

This chandelier was made in Ioannina in 1752, ‘by the labour of the goldsmiths the brothers Serbanos and Evstathios Sougdouris, under the direction of the most noble archon kyr Anastasios Karaioannis’, as we learn from the inscriptions on the finial. It was donated to Saint Catherine’s Monastery by the Sinai Archimandrite Germanos, from Kastoria.