Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

When I said to Mr. Gordon Lankton “Not every man has an opportunity to  live  in his dream,” he smiled disarmingly and later, as my wife Andrée and I were examining an icon of Saint Paraskeva, he wandered over and said, I don’t mean to interrupt you, but do you know her?” The icon was of an imposing lady draped in Roman dress. “She is one of my favorite characters,” he said. “Because she is the patron saint of commerce?” Lankton is no stranger to commerce. Twenty years ago, when everyone was moving West, he went East – to Russia , where he saw and was captivated by Russian Byzantine icons. His painstaking collection, a work of love, now fills a museum of his own making. Legend has it that Lankton’s wife, troubled by a metastasizing collection that was filling every corner of her house, gave her husband an ultimatum: Either the icons go, or I go. Thus are museums are born. “No,” he answered, “not because she is the patron saint of commerce. Saint Paraskeva ...