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The following article originally appeared in the ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS on April 19, 1992. It was written by Greg Lopez. It is printed with permission. Artist battling MS fights on "I have pictures in my mind, wonderful pictures," he says The Apocalypse isn't complete. It hangs on the wall in Lev Lominago's home in Denver, the Archangel Michael above the earth with the gospel in one hand and Satan in the other, frozen between now and forever. It is the last icon Lominago started. It is the art he learned in the Soviet Union behind a door that was locked. Now, he has multiple sclerosis, and the art is locked inside him. "I have pictures in my mind, wonderful pictures," says the internationally known artist. "It comes from above. The Apocalypse is the final one I must complete. Now, I wonder -- which Apocalypse will come first?" Lominago, 47, was born in Sverdlovsk, Russia to a family that had no religion. Religion was forbidden and ignored when it appeared in paintings by the masters. Moses and Jesus were men who had beards and had strange things going on around them. Angels were people who happened to have wings. He wandered into the Cave Monastery of the Dormition near Pskov when he was 14 and discovered something that was forbidden and undeniable. "It was just something inside me, and it had to stay inside me because it was not allowed," he said. "I believed. When I first saw the icons, it was like I could see through them into heaven." In 1965, under the guidance of the abbot of the monastery, he secretly started to teach himself to paint icons in the method of the Byzantine era. The icons are painted with layers of egg tempera mixed with natural pigment. A single color takes as many as eight layers, dark to light. A true icon has the depth of texture and belief. "A true icon is like the breath of God," Lominago says. "I do not paint it. I am just the instrument." In 1973, the International Rescue Committee helped Lominago and his wife, Natasha, to immigrate to the United States, and they were invited to Denver by All Saints Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. He sold his works - icons, landscapes and Russian folk art - for as much as $10,000. In 1980, he noticed he couldn't tolerate heat, and multiple sclerosis was diagnosed. It gradually took the movement of his legs, his arms. The hands were last. Lominago hasn't been able to complete a painting for more than a year. Still, he has the pictures in his mind. "I know they must be painted someday. God would not create something so beautiful if he did not want everybody to see them."
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