Icons

[Apotheoun]

[i]Here is an excerpt from chapter two of the book:[/i]



Consequently, the Second Council of Nicaea, the Seventh Ecumenical Council, in 787, declared not simply that icons are permissible, but that they are necessary. The council decreed that Christians not may, but [i]must[/i] make, use, and venerate icons, in their churches, homes, and streets. In the words of the council, "We define with all precision and diligence that, like the figure of the precious and life-creating Cross, the reverend holy images are to be set up, made out of pigments and tesserae and other appropriate material, in the holy churches of God, on the sacred vessels and vestments, on walls and on panels, in houses and on the ways: the image of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ, of our immaculate Lady the Holy Theotokos, of the honorable angels, and of all saints and holy men." To leave the holy icons out of the Christian life would be to deny that God became man and that man can become God. In 843, after a further interval of Iconoclasm, the images were restored once and for all. This event came to be celebrated in the Byzantine Church every year on the first Sunday of Lent, not merely as the restoration of the icons, but as the Triumph of Orthodoxy, of the entire true faith. This is set forth in one of the principle hymns for this feast: "The uncircumscribed Word of the Father became circumscribed, taking flesh from thee, O Theotokos, and He has restored the sullied image [i.e., man, made in the image of God] to its ancient glory, filling it with divine beauty. This our salvation we confess in deed and word, and we depict it in the holy images." The icon, for the Byzantines, is a complete expression of the Tradition, a proclamation of the incarnation of God and the deification of man.

[i]God is light[/i] – 1 John 1:5

As the hymn indicates, like the quotations from St. John of Damascus on images, God in His own nature is beyond description. As the Creator, the ground and source of absolutely all things, He cannot Himself be a thing, a being, one of the things that are. If He were something, anything, any being at all, He would be included within the world, the totality of that which is. He would then be one part of all that is, rather than the source of it all, and would be limited and defined in relation to the other beings, and so would not be God. If God is truly absolute and infinite, He must be not only invisible, incorporeal, supersensible, but also beyond thought, mind, and even beyond being itself, not included within the totality of things that are. Anything that we can approach with our minds, that we can "pin down" in thought, indeed anything that is, must be not God but a creature. Hence, for the Byzantines, God is utterly inaccessible, ineffable, inexpressible, and this is due not to any inadequacy of our minds, but rather to God's absolute transcendence. Such a doctrine is often called "apophatic" or "negative" theology, because it speaks of God only in negative terms, as [i]not[/i] any thing, [i]in[/i]describable, [i]in[/i]expressible, [i]un[/i]knowable, and so on. But this label can be misleading, for it suggests that we can truly state what God is not – that although all affirmative statements about God are inadequate, negative ones are not. In fact, however, even negative statements still represent an attempt to identify God in terms of thought. Even to say that God is not anything, or that God is ineffable, is already to say too much, for it is still trying to say something about God. Real negative theology, in the Byzantine tradition, therefore consists not in negative statements about God, but rather in utter silence.

But this is only half the story. As the Creator of all things, Himself not any thing, God is also totally manifest in all beings, all creatures, as the ground of their existence, the very being by which they are. Hence all creation is the self-manifestation of the God beyond being, and the same thinkers who insist most strongly on the absolute unknowability of God also emphasize most strongly that this unknowable, inaccessible God, this Nothing beyond all things, also reveals Himself in all things. He communicates Himself to the world – indeed, His act of creation is His communication of Himself to the world – and hence He can be known and named. And as we have seen, this idea of the absolutely inaccessible God who manifests Himself underlies the Byzantine doctrine of holy images.

This theology of silence and manifestation, of God as wholly hidden and wholly revealed, is best articulated by the Early Byzantine theologian known as Pseudo-Dionysios the Areopagite (fl. ca. 500). . . .



[i]To read more click the Google books link in the previous post.[/i]

[Laudate_Dominum]

I think I'll name our next baby Pseudo-Dionysios. Thanks Todd.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Laudate_Dominum' date='09 May 2010 - 10:34 AM' timestamp='1273422875' post='2107681']
I think I'll name our next baby Pseudo-Dionysios. Thanks Todd.
[/quote]
Hmm. If your next kid is a boy he'll be a boy named Pseu.

[Apotheoun]

Google books: [url="http://books.google.com/books?id=uq9_lFBTtFEC&pg=PP1&dq=Light+from+the+East:+Icons+in+Liturgy+and+Prayer&cd=1#v=onepage&q&f=false"]Light from the East: Icons in Liturgy and Prayer[/url]

[Apotheoun]

Another helpful book: [url="http://books.google.com/books?id=GoVeDXMvY-8C&lpg=PA51&dq=byzantine%20iconic%20theology&pg=PA42#v=onepage&q&f=false"]Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes[/url]

[Apotheoun]

Link to icons found in the Byzantine [url="http://campus.belmont.edu/honors/Cyprus/Lagoudera.html"]Church of Panagia tou Arakou[/url] in Cyprus. The icons are dated to the year A.D. 1192.

A few examples from the website linked above:

[img]http://campus.belmont.edu/honors/Cyprus/LagouderaTheotokApseMary.gif[/img]

[img]http://campus.belmont.edu/honors/Cyprus/LagouderaTheotokSNaveWall.gif[/img]

[img]http://campus.belmont.edu/honors/Cyprus/LagouderaTheotokBemaBishops2.gif[/img]

[Apotheoun]

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7X_jBGKft0[/media]

[Apotheoun]

[url="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hk4sGIZ2iaZdOMcOUf4P9gbMvwRgD9GGHKB00?index=0"]Archeologists use lasers to uncover 4th century icons in the Roman Catacombs[/url]

[Nihil Obstat]

How do you reverence an icon on a ceiling?

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' date='26 June 2010 - 02:36 PM' timestamp='1277584618' post='2134613']
How do you reverence an icon on a ceiling?
[/quote]
Very carefully!

[jeffpugh]

[quote name='Apotheoun' date='29 May 2010 - 02:24 AM' timestamp='1275114283' post='2120057']
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7X_jBGKft0[/media]
[/quote]
Excellent.

[Apotheoun]

[i]I posted this in another thread, but it really fits better here, so I am reposting it:[/i]


Icons are not simply religious paintings, but are mysteries that manifest the presence of the person or event depicted in them, for they are a theophany of divine grace and energy. Here are a few of things that help an Eastern Christian to differentiate between an icon and a painting with a religious theme:

(1) Does the image follow the aesthetic rules of the Holy Fathers, that is, does it use what scholars today call "reverse perspective" in order to convey the eschatological reality in which the saint or the event depicted exists as glorified in Christ; or does it use the naturalistic approach of "linear perspective," which became popular during the Renaissance, and which presents an image of this world.

(2) Does the image follow the dogmatic motifs that are sanctioned by the Church's rule of faith.

(3) Does the iconographer possess the orthodox faith, i.e., is he a member of the Church in good standing having been illuminated by the holy mysteries, and does he follow the ascetic discipline imposed upon those who write sacred icons.

(4) Does the iconographer work to portray the memory of the Church in the icon, or does he attempt to draw attention to himself and his craft through the use of his own peculiar creative imagination. Only the former is a true iconographer.

And finally, (5) has the image between properly sanctioned by the Church's hierarchy, who - in blessing the image for veneration by the faithful - attest to the presence of God's theophanic and deifying energy within the holy icon.

These points, which are not intended to be exhaustive, are helpful when it comes to telling the difference between an icon, which is a theological reality (i.e., a prayer of the whole Church), and a religious painting, which - however beautiful - simply represents the skills and imagination of the artist.

[sistersintigo]

[quote name='Apotheoun' date='09 May 2010 - 03:40 PM' timestamp='1273430423' post='2107709']
Hmm. If your next kid is a boy he'll be a boy named Pseu.
[/quote]
Holy Shel Silverstein....
Johnny Cash got so sick and tired of singing that song in his shows...