HOLY ICON – THE REALITY OF KNOWLEDGE AND VISION OF GOD

The Orthodox Theology of Icon

2012

ICOANA CREDINȚEI, 2023

The iconography of the Holy Trinity represents an extremely important issue, considering that the icon must fully express the truth of the Churchʼs faith, and current at the same time, since in church painting we can easily observe deviations from the canon of orthodoxy. That is precisely why, appealing to both the Orthodox and the Catholic bibliography, the present study aims to bring to the attention of theologians, clergy, iconographers and, why not, the laity alike, in a succinct presentation, the question of iconography and, implicitly, of the iconology of the Holy Trinity, to understand which representations are canonical and which are not, to correctly choose the icon of the Holy Trinity that can be painted and honored, in churches or in the home of every Christian.

History of Religions 1985, 24: 345-368., 1985

Identity and Dialogue. Religious and Philosophical Studies (RKS III), 2021

The icon is not an idol. The Church has always struggled with the ideologies foreign to Christianity, which still try to influence or even to press the Christians, by detours, to get rid of the apparent „remnants of idolatrous paganism”. The current dogmatic principles of the two branches of apostolic authenticity - the Church of the East and the Church of the West – emphasize, with the strength of divinehuman authority, that icons are part of the Christian life, insofar as the Christian life is essentially embedded or - rather - circumscribed into the icon. The absolute difference between the Christian icon and the pagan idolatry lies in the fact that the idol is perceived as the human representation of the immanent forces of nature while, on the contrary, the icon is the divine and holy conceptualization of the supernatural reality of God revealed to the world in order to transfigure it, to restore it and – most of all – to deify it by resemblance, through the perpetual communion of the uncreated grace.

EGO-European History Online, 2019

The word "icon" (and the adjective "iconic") is not an unfamiliar concept to the contemporary reader. It is used to denote things like the "icons" of our pop-culture (i.e. "stars") or the "icons" that we find on our computer screens. Although the meaning of these "icons" is different from the way this concept is used in Christian art and theology, it is not completely unrelated to the ancient connotations of the term "icon/iconic". Both in its Christian and in the pop-cultural contexts the "icon" implies a specific relationship between the spectator, the image (visual medium), and the message (i.e. the "original") that the medium/image communicates. This article primarily examines the Orthodox Christian understanding of the image (icon) and its function within the context of the Orthodox Church and her theology. Based on this, the article also explains the aesthetic elements of traditional Orthodox Christian iconography in connection with the complex web of mutual exchanges and influences (both theological and visual/stylistic) between Orthodox Christianity and Western European religious and artistic tradition.

Although one might characterize the twentieth century as the era of the image, taking into account the invention of the television, cinema, etc., images have been used for communication purposes since the earliest periods of human interaction. Their properties for symbolizing, for reifying, for teaching, and for inspiring have been recognized and employed throughout cultures and civilization. The significance and potency of images is perhaps best described by the well known saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words”. One particular image, uplifting the communication process to its highest form-prayer and veneration-is the icon. The icon is one of the primary methods of non-verbal communication in worship. It also possesses other capacities in the realm of the educational, historical, artistic... Most commonly found, and ascribed its greatest importance in the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church, it plays a primary role in prayer and worship services. Icons must be present in every Orthodox church and arranged in a particular order. One would be pressed to find a household of Orthodox Christian faithful devoid of these icons.

In this text I look at Eastern Orthodoxy pneumatology in relation to the theology of the Icon. I argue that the exclusivity of the Icon as the only expression of art within the Eastern Orthodox Church has inconsistencies with the doctrine of theosis and the Holy Spirit as the sanctifier of the whole of creation. Instead the pneumatology of Eastern Orthodox theology has the potential for a wider artistic expression.

Icon of the Kingdom of God: An Orthodox Ecclesiology, 2023

What is the Church? Some would answer this question by studying the Scriptures, historical sources, and contemporary theologians, thus addressing the theological nature of the Church. Others would answer based on statistics, interviews, and personal observation, thus focusing on the experience of the Church. These theological and experiential perspectives are in tension, or at times even opposed. Whereas the first might speak about the local church as the diocese gathered in the Liturgy presided over by its bishop, the latter would describe the local church as the parish community celebrating the Liturgy together with the parish priest, never experiencing a sole liturgy that gathers an entire diocese around its bishop. Whereas a theologian might describe the Church as a reflection of the Trinity, a regular church-member might experience the Church as a community that manifests the Kingdom of God in its outreach ministries. The present book attempts to bring these two perspectives together, starting from the concrete experience of the Church, engaging this experience with the theological tradition of the Church, extracting ecclesiological principles from this combined approach, and then highlighting concrete situations that reflect those standards or proposing correctives, when necessary. Without pretending to be a complete Orthodox ecclesiology, this book addresses, in a dialogical spirit, the most important topics related to the Church. It progresses according to one’s experience of the Church from baptism, to the family, parish, Liturgy, and priesthood, followed by analyses of synodality and nationality. Arguing that the Church is an icon of the Kingdom of God, this volume brings together the past theological heritage and the present experience of the Church. It pushes the boundaries of classical treatises of Orthodox ecclesiology by being informed and transformed by the practical experience of the Church, the centrality of Jesus’ message of the Kingdom, and by ecumenical encounters.