There is still a little over a month left to see the grand exhibit of Russian icons at the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore. Titled "Sacred Arts and City Life: The Glory of Medieval Novgorod," the show includes 35 icons, many from the 14th century Golden Age of Novgorod, the important trading center on the Volkhov River that connected the Baltic and Black Seas. The show will end on Feb. 12.

Most of these icons have never been seen outside Russia before, and also, they are shown side-by-side with metal craft, leatherwork, wooden objects (including toys) and archeological materials preserved in the unusual clay soil of Russia’s oldest medieval city and excavated in layers over the past century. What emerges is a picture of how the transcendent visions inside Novgorod’s glittering church interiors were connected to the everyday life of a rugged trading city in the frozen north, from the Christianization of Russia in 988 down to the eclipse of the city by Moscow in the late 16th century.

In its heyday, lasting for six centuries, Novgorod was a center of east-west interchange, and in this exhibit it fulfills that role again.

Catholics have quite a stake in learning to appreciate icons, which are not "art for art’s sake" but rather sacred objects that participate in the sanctity of the figures portrayed, a kind of window into the divine. There can be no doubt that Pope Benedict XVI will push forward the dialogue with the Orthodox churches begun by his predecessor, and that icons will play a part — witness the Holy Father’s selection of several icons among the 15 works chosen to illustrate the shortened Catechism he had published in 2005.

Indeed, three Catholic schools in Maryland contributed to a fascinating exhibit of icons made by school children that was on view at the Walters from Nov. 19 to Jan. 1. Called "Child’s View into Heaven: Sacred Icons," it featured over 300 icons and embossed metal crosses produced at St. Michael’s School (Ridge), Summit Academy (a home school program in Woodstock) and Our Lady of Mt. Carmel School (Baltimore).

Novgorod adopted the Byzantine-Orthodox form of Christianity and began constructing stone churches 1,000 years ago in a city almost entirely of wood, attesting to the desire to build temples symbolizing the permanence of heaven. The outsides are spare, but inside they are filled with colorful icons, civil images and brilliant metal vessels.

One high point of the exhibit is a grand, two-tier iconostasis that has been recreated by assembling icons from different sources. Novgorod is believed to have been the birthplace of the iconostasis, a wooden screen of icons that separated the nave (lay people) from the sanctuary (clergy). It became a staple of Orthodox churches everywhere. At the top level, the largest icon would be a Deisis, in which a court of saints and angels supplicate Christ enthroned in glory on behalf of the faithful, while at the lowest level one would find local saints portrayed.

The Walters show includes a set of gilt bronze doors that could have been part of the central iconostasis in St. Sophia, the Novgorod cathedral.

Another set of iconostasis doors, made for a Novgorod monastery in the 16th century, depicts two saints who will play key roles in the dialogue of eastern and western Christianity, because they are important theologians of the first millennium, when there was but one Church.

The ornate doors show St. Basil the Great (4th century bishop of Caesaria) and John Chrysostom (4th century bishop of Constantinople), each bearing a scroll with an inscription. St. Basil’s scroll opens a litany of the Mother of God: "Our all-holy, immaculate, most-blessed, and glorious lady." John Crysostom, the 4th century bishop of Constantinople, has the words: "Lord, our God, whose power is beyond compare." The two saints’ faces are intensely expressive, while their bodies are de-materialized in the typical fashion of icons by a bold surface pattern of white, black, red and gold textiles.

Painted above the saints, the Annunciation reminds viewers of the Incarnation of Christ, whose body and blood they receive in Communion. John Chrysostom, a great eucharistic theologian, fervently believed in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

Included in the admission ticket is a free audio guide which is highly recommended, since it gives insights not only into the Novgorod exhibit but the rest of the museum as well. The only caution would be not to limit oneself to the objects highlighted by the guide. As usual, the Walters has gone out of its way to make everything "family friendly" and the many objects of secular life produced in Novgorod and the information on the unique archaeology of the area add up to a very entertaining, as well spiritually enriching, display.