www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Photo Gallery ByzFANtium: An Icon-covered ceiling fans (Part II)

More ceiling fans.

Pastor Thomas,

Truly elegant and spiritually beautiful. I keep coming back to the one of the Pantocrater. My compliments to your son.

Many years,

Neil

He tells me the inspiration was two fold; first, having seen some Iconstases with an upper (clerestory?) row of smaller Icons of the Great Feasts; second, from having watched a Slavonic language DVD on the Divine Liturgy which had been filmed in and around Belgrade at Pascha.

The Serbian DVD showed a number of temple chandeliers with various Icons attached to the rim.

I should also point out that the brass behind the Pantocrator, etc, is not original to the fan motor. He cut those brass pieces from very thin brass craft/hobby sheeting. We'd hoped to be able to top each of the arches with a budded cross but the brass stock was not wide enough.

Some interesting alignments: Some might call them serendipitous: I call them God-inspired.

ICONOFAN

The top section or “Crown” clockwise, as on a Bishop’s crown:

Christ the Teacher (1) to the front
Theotokos (2)
Exaltation of the Holy Cross (3)
Forerunner and Baptist John (4)

The lower section “Great Feasts” in CHRONOLOGICAL NOT Church Year order clockwise
(numbers indicate alignment with the Crown)

Nativity of the Theotokos
Presentation of the Theotokos
Annunciation (3)
Nativity of Christ
Presentation of Christ
Theophany (4)
Transfiguration
Triumphal Entry
Resurrection (1)
Ascension
Pentecost
Dormition (2)

Thus: The Feast of feasts is placed below Christ the Teacher, revealing His ultimate teaching “I am the Resurrection and the Life”; the Theophany is placed below the great Forerunner and Baptist John; the Annunciation is placed beneath the Exalatation of the Cross, for according to the Synaxis of Pascha, it was on the 25th of March that Christ was Crucified; and the Theotokos is placed above her Dormition.

This also creates lines of linkage between Christ’s Resurrection and his Annunciation (as noted above) as well as between the Theophany and the Dormition of the Theotokos “for if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Christ” (Romans 6:4)

There are secondary lines of linkage between the Feasts of the Triumphal Entry and the Presentation of the Theotokos, which was a triumphal entry in its own right as well as a foreshadowing of the greater triumphal entry to come; The Presentation of Christ in which Simeon discerned the Savior “by the Holy Spirit” and the Feast of Pentecost through which His light was indeed revealed to all nations; The Nativity of Christ and the Ascension, which are linked melodically by their Troparia which serve as “bookends” to the descent and ascent of the Word made Flesh; and the Nativity of the Theotokos by which the sorrow of Joachim and Anna was transfigured into joy and the Transfiguration of Christ which brought joy to the Apostles before the sorrow of the Cross.