Eleusis - Merciful from Greek: έλεος - compassion, sympathy, or Tenderness is one of the main types of images of the Mother of God in Orthodox iconography. The Mother of God is depicted with the infant Christ sitting in her arms and pressing his cheek to her face. On the icons depicting the Virgin of Eleusis, there is no distance between Mary and Christ, their love is boundless. In Greek art, this iconographic type is also called Glycophilus (Greek: Γλυκυφιλουσα – sweet-loving). The earliest such image is preserved from 650, in a fresco in the Basilica of Santa Maria Antiqua in Rome. Most often, the images of the Virgin of Eleusis are waist-length.