www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West New UGCC Catechism Reaffirms Papal Infallibility?

Should say "Makes me..."

^ RE Stuart's comment earlier: True, but without 'dyspeptic laymen' none of these boards would be any fun at all! After all, they never let reason or rationality get in the way of a good chest pumping argument! (Just kidding, that's surely not my creed!)

I see, so believing in things like the essence / energy distinction, or the doctrine that divine energy is present in icons, or that the original sin made all men mortal without simultaneously supporting the erroneous notion of inherited guilt, is the equivalent of supporting abortion, gay marriage, and women priests?

What an utterly repugnant thing to say! That kind of attitude will ensure Catholic / Orthodox division for another thousand years.

This divine energy, being present in icons, is somehow russian icon theology of Ouspensky's type. My greek profesor of iconography wont be supportive on that. An icon is an image, partcipating in prototype through figure similarity, as the word to the object through its meaning.

My goodness. i'm amazed at the way some of you simply brush off your own canons like they are of no authority except that in which you choose to interpret them. And then toss around the bigot word too.

All of this certainly has a distinctive Protestant flavor to it. Whoulda thunk it, Byzantine Protestants...

It is not merely Russian, it is patristic, and so on this issue I will continue to agree with St. John Damascene who spoke about it in this way: "I reverence therefore matter and I hold in respect and venerate that through which my salvation has come about, I reverence it not as God, but as filled with divine energy and grace" (St. John Damascene, On Divine Images, pages 70-71).

You misunderstood the point he was making. He wasn't saying that ignoring the social and doctrinal teachings of the Churches will be morally equivalent. He was saying that both those who ignore social teachings promulgated by their hierarchy and those who ignore doctrinal teachings promulgated by their hierarchy are putting their own opinion above that of the leaders of their Church. Whilst his examples are emotive and thus not appropriate or effective, the point he is making has merit in my view.

And in expectation of you trotting out the old chestnut of "the leaders of Rome aren't the leaders of my Church", this is the UGCC's catechism, so that won't wash.

I'll be sure to take that up with Maximos the Confessor, if ever I should meet him.

When all you have is a hammer, everyone looks like a Protestant.

Damascene is talking about incarnation, if am not wrong, and its impact on elevating matter in general on being the body elements of God the Son. But Damascene is not talking in here as to the reason he venerates icons, because of having grace within them.
The main and only argument of the fathers, especially during iconoclastic period, was that the icon represents the the human characteristics of the hypostase of Christ. As long the image bears those characteristics it participates in the prototype being its icon through the similarity it conveys. Nothing more!


Example. One icon has the devil in it, let say, tempting Joseph. Is his figure bearing some sort of divine energy?
Also, Icons represent kings, historical personages who might not be saints at all.

Yes, the incarnation is the source of iconic representation, and it is because of the incarnation that an image participates in its prototype, and that means that the icon is infused with God's energy and power; as St. John himself affirms later in his treatise in connection with the images of the saints: "The saints during their earthly lives were filled with the Holy Spirit and when they fulfill their course, the grace of the Holy Spirit does not depart from their souls or their bodies in the tombs, or from their likenesses and holy images, not by the nature of these things, but by grace and power."

There is no way around it, icons contain divine energy, and to deny that fact is to fall into the heresy of iconoclasm.

All icons contain divine energy, but it does not follow that the image of the devil in an icon is thereby venerated. Does the image contain his presence? The answer to that is, yes, that is, as long as you accept the teaching of the St. John and of St. Theodore. If a hypostasis is represented in an image, the energies of that hypostasis are necessarily present, because - although they are distinct from the hypostasis itself - they can never be separated from it, and so the energies of the saints, which are inseparable from them, are present in their icons. But there is nothing to fear from an icon that may depict Satan (or a number of demons) because Christ has definitively defeated Satan and all his minions upon the cross, and so they are inherently weak and powerless to harm anyone who has a living faith in Christ.

P.S. - I am sure that I do not need to tell you this, but Satan and the damned in hell are all infused with divine energy, because it is God's energy that keeps all things in being.

Containing divine energy in that sense is not particular to icons, but to all matter.
On the other hand, for an icon to convey the personal energy of prototype it has to have the same essence, since the same energy is bound to the same sort of essence. In that case we would claim exactly what iconoclastic emperor Constantine V criticised as monophysitism or nestorianism in the veneration of icons.

In his treatise on Holy Icons St. Theodore is asked by his interlocutor if it is permitted to believe that divinity is present in icons and he answers as follows: "If one says that divinity is in the icon, he would not be wrong, since it is also in the representation of the cross and in the other sacred objects; but divinity is not present in them by a union of natures, for they are not the deified flesh, but by a relative participation, because they share in the grace and the honor."

In this text St. Theodore affirms that icons contain divinity (i.e., divine energy), but cautions that this must not be seen as a type of "hypostatic union" (i.e., a union of natures); instead, it is a relative participation based upon hypostatic likeness.

I have not denied that divine energy is present in everything (quite the contrary I affirmed it in an earlier post), but the manner of its presence in an icon is different, because it is there through hypostatic likeness, which is why we venerate icons. If you venerate something that you believe is devoid of grace it follows that you are committing idolatry. Such is life I suppose, but I will never voluntarily become an idolater.

P.S. - So far, at least based upon your posts up to this point, you have not supplied me with any information that would make me alter my belief that icons contain divine energy because they participate in the hypostasis of their prototypes.