www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Statues and Icons

Dear Alex,

I was wondering if you could expand on this. How is it that an icon can depict the divinised Humanity of Christ in a way that statues cannot? What "methods" are used in the writing of icons that make this happen?

Dear Qathuliqa,

Well, a statue can only outline the form of a human body.

An icon can depict the Humanity of Christ in a Divinized, spiritualized style to indicate that what we have before us is more than just Man, but is God as well.

The Saints who participate in Theosis are also depicted with spiritualized, divinized bodies in accordance with the canons of iconography.

Alex

Ways that Ikons can show Divinity is by use of the Mandorla, the Aura of Holiness (halo); but most unique to ikonography is the ability to 1. show inverse perspective; 2. the Light of the Transfigured Body of Christ or the saint in question; 3. the ability to show the connectivity of temporally disparate events by having each event in the same Ikon, even on the same plane from our perspective (e.g. the Nativity Ikon is loaded with this).

Dear Akemner,

Thank you for that insight!

Just when someone thinks "I can't" (respond to Mor Ephrem's question), you come and say, "Icon!"

Alex

Thanks AKemner. I was wondering the same thing that Mor asked.

However, I've seen statues with halos around them (suspended in the air, attached in different ways).

ChristTeen287

Will someone please explain to me what is meant by "divinized" and "three dimentional" (regarding the religious staues)? If I'm correct, the One Who is Divine is the entire Blessed Trinity. Our Lady, the Angels and the Saints are holy. How can They be classified as "divinized"? Since They are holy and Jesus (and the Most Blessed Trinity) are divine, don't people know this just by looking at statues and icons of Them automatically? Will someone please explain this to me?

God bless!!!

Ave Maria

Hello all,

You have all hit the nail on the head with the artistic, religious and ecclesial background of iconography.

However, as one poster wrote, and I agree (and I am Greek Orthodox), statues are beautiful and can move you to tears. I positively love Gothic churches with their statuary, and often, (ie: St. Patrick's Cathedral here in NYC), one doesn't know if they are in heaven or on earth. When my teenage daughter first saw St. Patrick's, and even though she had been in beautiful Byzantine churches her whole life, said, "mom, I never saw such a beautiful church before"...yes, art and architecture can indeed be personally and/or culturally subjective.

Anyway, back to the use of statuary; the Greek people had a tendency to fall into idolatry, so the use of statues would not have been a clever choice of representation for them. Statues were quite popular in their pagan deity cults. (Did you know that the main attraction of the Parthenon in ancient times was the enormous gold statue of Athena within it?) Infact, taken to an extreme, in Greece, some people have often taken their feelings for icons (we are supposed to venerate, not worship) out of context ....focusing on a 'miraculous icon' as an icon, rather than on who it is depicting and why.

Agape,
Alice

Dear ChristTeen,

You make an interesting point about the halos in iconography, O Catholic-inclined scion of John Wesley!

Vladimir Lossky, in fact, makes the point that halos are attached to the bodies of Orthodox Eastern Saints to underscore the doctrine of Theosis.

He says that, more often than not, halos are NOT attached to the bodies of Western saints since the West doesn't hold to Theosis.

Alex

Dear Alice,

Yes, no one is saying (I hope they are not) that statues cannot be inspiring forms of religious art for the purpose of liturgical and private worship!

I refer back to a post by the Administrator when he praised me for saying that it all depends on the quality of the form of religious art.

I particularly love Baroque religious art - there are a number of exquisite Baroque Churches in Nice, France where one truly does feel lifted up into Heaven!!

As an aside, I noticed a tremendous veneration for St Rita of Cascia there.

She is a patron against cancer and people write their petitions and names directly onto her white alabaster statues.

The parish churches have had to post signs telling people not to do that, that it is a sign of disrespect etc.

But, in the end, they just tape blank pages to her statues so people can write on them, rather than on the stone . . .

Alex

Dear Ave Maria - Dominus Tecum!

You've put your finger on a most crucial point with respect to the Eastern Church's Theosis!

Good for you!

Now let's see if I can come up with an explanation that is equally as good . . . I don't know, but here goes . . .

Divinization/Theosis/Deification is the term that explains the ultimate goal of Christ's Incarnation and plan for our Salvation.

Justification, salvation from sin and hell - these are all important parts of why the Son of God became Incarnate, yes.

But the ultimate goal is for us to experience the Transfiguration of Christ on Mount Tabor.

The goal of our Christian life is to participate in the Body and Life of Christ throught he Holy Spirit.

In so doing, we are cleansed of sin and of sinfulness, grow in virtue and then we become "Divinized" not in the sense of becoming God as God is, for that would be impossible, but in the sense of becoming God-like by the Grace of the Holy Spirit.

This can occur through our participation not in God's own Inner Nature - that is forever beyond us.

But by our union with Christ and in Christ and the Holy Trinity, we can partake of God's Divine Energies, the Divine Rays that emanate from God like the rays from the sun.

And this transfigures us, including our bodies.

The bodies of saints are often incorrupt - they don't fall under the usual laws of nature because their bodies are Temples of the Holy Spirit and attain God-like attributes. Their touch performs miraculous healings. Their prayer affects other peoples' lives.

And Saints are portrayed with this Light of Mt Tabor around them - that is where the idea of the halo actually comes from.

The icon, unlike the statue, is eminently qualified to represent Christ, Our Lady and the Saints as they truly are - in their Divinized Human bodies.

Christ is God the Word Incarnate and He is the First Icon - He is the Image of the Father, in fact, Who also gave us the First Icon in His Holy Mandylion, the Icon on the cloth of Veronica and the Shroud.

The iconographer doesn't "paint" an Icon - he or she "writes" an icon since it does the same thing that sacred words do.

Iconographers must go to confession and Communion, must pray the entire Divine Office for one day in advance of writing icons and must bless their brushes and paints with special prayers.

The paints themselves contain elements from the entire cosmos, the entire creation made by God.

And special rules are to be followed in writing icons to ensure that the Gospel and the Faith of the Church about Christ, Our Lady and the Saints are communicated properly.

In addition, the deep spirituality that should characterize the iconographer is also communicated on the icon, and a number of great iconographers have been canonized as saints - their holiness is made evident in their work. St Andrei Rubleev of Russia - all of his icons are Miracle-working!

The icon shows the bodies of Christ and the Saints not as our bodies or as their bodies would have looked when they were on earth.

They show their bodies as they are in the celestial heights of the highest heaven.

The icon of Christ teaches us that Christ is both God and Man. A statue can only show the form of Christ's human body before His death and resurrection.

The icon of Our Lady and the Saints show their bodies in the glorified state in which they now are, rather than as they were while on earth.

This does not mean that statues cannot be inspiring or helpful.

But, in our Church tradition, only icons can be publicly and liturgically venerated in Church.

We take literally the teaching that the bodies of the saints are Temples of the Holy Spirit wherein the Trinity dwells.

That is why in the East all services to saints are truly Divine Services - in praying to them, we are praying to God Who lives in them.

Alex

Dear Alex,

Thanks be to God! The Christian East will always stand as shining witness that the law of prayer is indeed the law of belief.

To be sure, I have been to Roman parishes that truly attempted to live out their liturgical heritage with reverence and beauty but oh my, the lack of theological awareness over a good part of current Western Christendom at the moment has borne some very strange fruit.

Of course, I should have had a hint of what was coming during my RCIA journey when an inquirer asked one of the "team leaders" what the language of the Kyrie Eleison was -- she promptly and sweetly answered "Latin!"

Sigh.
Khrystyna

Dear Khrystyna,

And if Latin was good enough for the Apostles, it should be good enough for us . . .

I once read that there is an unwritten rule that all Catholic Churches and traditions MUST have at least one prayer that is recited in Greek SOMEWHERE in its liturgical tradition.

In the Desert, the retention of Greek for the Eucharistic Canon was practiced even when other liturgical languages were used.

The fear was that someone might make a mistake in translating the Greek Canon that would invalidate the Consecration!

Believe it or not . . .

Alex

Dear Alex,

Hi!!! Thank you for the explanations!!!

So, the icons are actually written and not drawn? Can an icon tell the entire life, or a certain point in the life, of Jesus, the Blessed Mother or the Saints? Do certain parts of icons symbolize certain things? If so, how are we to know what they mean if they are not specific?

You also mention that icons of Saints represent them in their "divinized" bodies---as they are in Heaven---because their bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit. But, I think that all bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, are they not? Will you please explain if you can?

God bless!!!

Ave Maria

By-the-way, what does Theosis mean?

God bless, again!!!

Ave Maria

Originally posted by Christine:
Dear Ave Maria,

I think when we get to discussing "images" and "statues" and "idolatry" it may help to keep in mind that if we literally observed the Biblical ban against images I would have to remove dear old faithful Aunt Nellie's photo from the fireplace.


Absolutely true. The earliest Christians painted representations of Jesus upon walls and such - this artwork has been found and most of us have seen it in books and such. The Eastern Byzantine empire produced wonderful artwork (in Roman as well as Greek styles) including carved panels, wall and ceiling mosaics, and small statues. In current Orthodox church there is more artwork present than just Icons - the walls and ceilings are most often painted to depict events in the life of Christ and Mary and the saints. All artwork teaches and reminds.

It was natural for the Roman Church to continue the three-dimensional art form used by pagan Rome etc..�

Greeks had a long history of it also, as did most cultures. You certainly have seen the statues of the Greeks.

The Council of Nicaea II wrote �who venerates the image is venerating in it the person of the one depicted.�

Somewhere along the line - some members of the church equated the general term �icon� which means �image� and is generic to represent all forms of artwork - to be restricted to a certain kind of art (a style of painting long popular in the East).


but true idolatry really has nothing to do with images per se but the placing of someone or something above God first and foremost.

And you might be please to hear that the commandment not to make �graven images� has the meaning of �you shall not make idols� only secondarily - its primary meaning, in context of the Hebrew - it is that God is the creator (the potter) and he has created everything in his image (to reflect himself) and we should not take anything of the created world (the image of himself that he engraved) - either spiritual (of the mind) nor material (of the senses) - to be a substitute for the un-created God himself.

The commandment includes the things you talked about. Only in its most fundamental, restricted and materialistic sense does it apply to the ancient practice of idol making . Idolatry is not in the artwork - but in the mind and heart of the person (of course). A statue, an Icon, the Cross itself - as well as the economy, politics, nationalism, socialism, Democrat, Republican, artificial divisions of the One Catholic Church - or any self interest or false beliefs - anything can be an idol because what makes the item (material or spiritual of the mind) an idol - is in the mind and heart of the person - it is not in the item.

Some people would argue that the Church herself - is an idol or used by people as an idol - if that is true - then I would say that the church alone is an idol given to us by God so that we might rise from the church to him. A stepping stone (as it were). A �transparent� idol - given to us. As long as we are not full saints - we MUST have idols because SOMETHING must occupy that place in us where God should be seated. If God is not first everywhere in our lives (and let us face it - he is not) then where He is not first - something else (of mind or thoughts) - is.

Those who may be afraid that they might treat some item of artwork as an idol can certainly do without that art work as the church does not require artwork but allows it and all Catholic churches (the particular churches) do some kind of regulation of it.

This is the way I see it.