My wife got me an icon for my birthday - you can see it here.
It’s beautiful, but I’d like to know what the writing says.
You can see in the photo that in the Christ’s halo, the spokes are labled 'O, N, and what looks like a small w with two marks above it. On the left side above the cross it says “‘O ΠOIMH’N”, more or less, and on the right it says “‘O KAΛO’C”
Finally, you can’t see in the photo, but across the bottom in small print there is more text, which I have tried to replicate thus:
**“δ” ΠΛΑΝΗΘÉΝ ΌΡΕΙÁΛωΤΟΝ ΕÝΡώΝ ΠΡÓΒΑΤΟΝ ΄ώΜΟΙС ΆΝΑΛΑΒώΝ (*), ΠΑΤΡÍ **
That first character looks like a small ‘o’ with a capital T growing out of it - like this turned 90 degrees: Ю
Where I have indicated (*) is a symbol that looks like a small w, with a T growing out the top. I can’t even find a character that looks anything like it to type for you.
What’s written in the nimbus is (transliterating, I’m not going to bother with Greek characters) “O on”, which means “He who is”, which is the Greek rendering of the Biblical “I am that I am” that God called Himself.
“O Pimin o Kalos” is “The Good Shepherd”.
Alas, the text on the bottom is beyond my ken; the two aforementioned phrases, though, are commonly found on icons (“O on” is always put in Christ’s nimbus).
I can answer this, though:
That’s “To”; it’s a T and an O written together. The “w” with a T on top is another ligature, also for “To” (but written with omega rather than omicron).
I sent an email to a friend of mine who knows Byzantine Greek, and am waiting for a reply. The transcription of the last Greek sentence you put was a bit munged; I found a larger picture of the icon here and sent that to him.
I got an answer back from my friend. He says the third word in there he can’t figure out, but the gist of it is “The one who carries the sheep on the shoulders into the presence of the Father”. He’s going to check with one of the native Greek speakers at the seminary where he studies.
The version given in the post above is from the original Byzantine hymn. However, we just took a look at the larger image of the icon and seems that a variation of the phrase is used in this case.
The correct translation would be:
“And having found the stray sheep wandering in the mountains,
He placed it on His shoulders and carried it to the Father.”
