Let us preserve a collection of precious liturgical icons
With Bulgarian Development Aid, 188 icons from the Émile Hannouche Collection, held at USEK, received preventive conservation and ten were fully restored, then shown to the public at the USEK Museum.
The collection
The icons belong to the collection assembled by the late Émile Hannouche. They had been kept in a library classroom at USEK and were moved to the USEK Museum in Kaslik, where the work took place.
All 188 icons were examined, given a preliminary cleaning, fumigated and checked again after treatment. The whole collection was photographed by Alfred Moussa, including before and after images of the ten restored icons.
Ten icons, 1705 to 1856
Ten priority icons were fully restored: varnish removal, structural consolidation and retouching. They come from the Melkite school of Aleppo, the Jerusalem school and Greek workshops, and range from a Tree of Jesse dated 1705 to a Theotokos dated 1856.
The restoration was carried out in Kaslik between 22 July and 5 September 2024 by Nezabravka Antonova Parvanova, restorer at the National Museum of History in Sofia, assisted by Pascale El Corm. Father Charbel Nassif, a specialist in icons, studied and documented each of the ten. Elsie El Deek Bou Jaoude, art historian and curator of the USEK Museum art collection, completed the inventory and directed the project.
Shown to the public, and renewed
The restored icons were unveiled in the exhibition “Guardians of the Sacred: Restored Icons from the USEK Collection”, opened on 24 June 2025 under the patronage of H.E. Mr. Iassen Tomov, Ambassador of Bulgaria to Lebanon.
On 17 April 2025 the partners signed a second, 19-month agreement, “Restoring Sacred Icons: Preserving Cultural Heritage and Making History Visible”, worth 38,482.95 BGN, to conserve a further group of icons from the same collection.
Sources: Grant agreement of 11 April 2024; final report on project implementation (September 2025); restoration report on the ten icons; catalogue notes by Fr. Charbel Nassif; agreement of 17 April 2025.
Tree of Jesse, 1705, Melkite school of Aleppo 
The Prophet Elijah, first half of the 18th century, Melkite, attributed to Mikhaïl al-Dimashqi 
The Virgin of Sorrow 
The Virgin enthroned between two angels, 18th century, Greek 
The Holy Family, 18th century, Melkite school of Aleppo 
The Baptism of Christ, 19th century, Jerusalem school 
Saint Anthony the Great 
Saint Anthony the Great 
The Nativity of the Virgin, 19th century 
The Theotokos with the Child Jesus, 1856, Melkite