I came across a number of beautiful cards recently, each one seald in plastic. They are beautiful icon-like paintings of various saints, Christs, Virgin and Child, etc. and so on. all done in tradtional Orthodx style. Each card is about the size of a small flashcard, and laminated to it is a tiny scrap of what looks like cloth or maybe a little...piece of something? (?) Most of them are placid but a few are a bit on the bloody side (a man's head getting hacked off and streams of blood being collected graphically in some sort of pan...the man's head then carried off, halo glowing happily, by angels or somebody on a plate...

The writing is all cyrillic so I can'T read it. The backs atre covered in cyrillic writing. They really are quite beautiful, excellent artestry. Does anyone know what these are all about? What do they mean, what are they used for? What is the small laminated item?

Thanks in advance for anyone who knows about this. I think they are Russian due to the cyrillic writing, but of course other areas in eastern europe use cyrillic or alphabets very similar thereto, so I suppose it could be bulgarian orthodx as easily as russian orthodox, say.

If you could find a link similar to what you have seen, i would gladly translate it for you.

The icon of the man who was beheaded is St. John the Baptist. There at least 4 holy days devoted to him. One when he was beheaded, one when the head was lost and one when they found the head . Another when it was lost again and found. I am not joking even though it sounds silly.
my best friend is Russian orthodox and is the church cantor. I get the whole scoop weather I like it or not.

OK, I just took some photos as below.

Here's a birds-eye view


Typical saintly figure


Back of one card:


This is a beautifully detailed madonna and child, too bad I'm not good enough a cameraman to capture that aspect here:



Finally, here hand held for size comparison, is a small baggie stuffed with lots of tiny books and charms, many on small strings. Many of the small books are sealed. I really want to know what this is for, if anyone knows:

The item you are wondering about is a small piece of a prayer cloth.

When Paul healed the sick and preformed other miracles it was said that even a piece of cloth he touched was also able to heal the sick and bring about miracles.

If I were you I would speak with a Priest concerning your treasure.

Helen jogged my memory concerning the oil.

What may look like blood on the cards or the prayer cloth is probably Holy oil. In time it would darken and look like blood stains.

Of course, depending on the age and authenticity some of the stains could be blood from the body of the person the original prayer cloth was used on.

I have tried to read the witting but its too blurred for me to make it out , the only part i could see was Georgios (Saint George ) as mentioned above. Given that the Russian Orthodox is still based on the Old Testament Trinity as they did not change to the Gregorian calender.

You might perhaps want to research "Panagio Tafos" which has been under the jurisdiction of the Greek Orthodox.

Thanks to everyone in this thread for your interesting and helpful comments. I will try to figure out a bit more about their use and functions, etc as well. I appreciate your input.