Repin repainted the priest’s face in “Religious Procession in an Oak Forest” in 1924

"The extract of our deacons, those lions of the clergy, in whom not one iota of anything spiritual is to be found: he is all flesh and blood, goggle eyes, maw and senseless roar" - so Repin wrote to Kramskoy of his "Protodeacon" in 1878. Well, these words need not, of course, be taken into account when considering his canvases on religious themes, though they are not so easy to banish from the memory. As for the priest in golden vestments, so much like that same protodeacon, in the painting "Religious Procession in an Oak Forest. The Appearance of the Icon", it emerged not long ago that Repin repainted the face of the central figure in 1924, 47 years after the canvas was completed, and endowed the cleric with those same recognisable features.