Icon Question

[Xpycoctomos]

Why are some women's heads not covered (like St. Mary of Egypt). I know there are some where some heir is showing (like St Xenia, I think?), but then there are others without any cover at all.

Thanks in advance!

http://www.ecva.org/exhibition/icons/images/hudgins.jpg

[Michael the Iconographer]

I have not seen other icons with uncovered heads other than St. Mary of Egypt. St. Mary of Egypt is an exception in iconography due to the life she lived and the testament to the conversion she underwent. If you can think of other women with uncovered heads I would gladly be willing to do the research required to explain why their heads are uncovered, but that I can think of St. Mary of Egypt is the only case.

[Matrona]

Why are some women's heads not covered (like St. Mary of Egypt). I know there are some where some heir is showing (like St Xenia, I think?), but then there are others without any cover at all.

Saints who are younger women or girls sometimes don't have as much head-covering as adult women. Some young women do cover a lot (the Theotokos with St. Anna, for example) but sometimes they don't, like St. Barbara with her helmet and the royal martyrs Maria and Anastasia Nikolaevna.

St. Mary's an exception because she was naked and had only had Zosima's cloak to clothe herself with, after her clothes rotted off during her many years of ascesis in the desert. She had other stuff that was more important to cover. ;)