«The orthodox iconographers never served their profession as “artists” -with the contemporary meaning of the word- but rather as “medians”. They didn’t consider Iconography as an art but as a form of everyday spiritual exercise. Therefore, considering themselves as lowly therapists, they kept their anonymity. Instead of their name (or on its side), they used various self-characterizations (more often with spelling mistakes) such as: “the supposedly painter”, “shabby scribe”, “least, lowly, resigned historian”, “worthless, last iconographer”, “pitiable, lowly painter”, “the lowly slave” and other similar expressions.»

source: http://piombinos.blogspot.gr/p/blog-page_1.html