This year we are blessed that Orthodox and Catholic Lents/Easters are at the same time so we can enjoy each others’ celebrations simultaneously. Today I was at the Syrian Melkite church of St Barnabas in Belgravia. Canon Robin Gibbons presided over a beautiful celebration of the first Sunday of Orthodox Lent... the Triumph of Orthodoxy. In his sermon (part of which I attach), Fr Robin emphasised how this feast, and Lent in general, is a call to return to the ‘original face of ourselves’ – that is to the IKON of Christ. Hence this is the feast day of the return of the Ikon and the veneration of the picture of Christ within us.
Abbot Mark Patrick Hedermann, in my ‘Bloomsbury Guide to Christian Spirituality’, summed up the origins of the feast very succinctly:
‘Iconoclasm
means in Greek 'the smashing of images'. A general council of the church that
met in Elvira in 306 stated in its thirty-sixth canon that ‘the hanging of
paintings in churches shall be forbidden, since the object of veneration and
worship does not belong on a wall.’7
We
first hear of the church’s use of images in the sixth century, the imperial
family playing an important role in this development. An image of the Virgin
Mary, said to have been painted by St Luke, was moved from Jerusalem
to Constantinople . The cult of images could no
longer be ignored. Theologians on both sides began to articulate their
positions. John of Damascus [680-749] was one of the first champions of images,
issuing the important distinction that ‘the image is a likeness that expresses
the archetype in such a way that there is always a difference between the two.’8 Jesus Christ
was the archetype from whom all ‘types’ [as the icons were referred to] derived
their venerability.
Any
person who prayed before an icon, which was usually of Christ, His Mother, or
certain saints, nearly always looking out at you, was encountering the presence
of whomsoever was depicted there. Devotees were not venerating the icon itself.
The eyes of the icon were the vortex through which the eyes of the beholder
were suctioned to meet the presence of the original, beyond the depiction, in
eternity. The Damascene’s subtlety and
enthusiasm were not shared by the opposing movement of iconoclasts, whose
reform gathered momentum around 725. In this phase of the battle, icons were
destroyed as pagan idols, incompatible with Christian belief as well as being a
scandal to both Jews and Muslims.
The
Emperor Leo III embraced the iconoclastic movement in about 726. He had
political reasons for doing so, but it seems that his basic motivation was to
institute a religious reform which would bring Christianity back to its roots
of worship in spirit and in truth. Leo III had a number of remarkable military
successes against the hitherto irresistible advance of Islam. These he took as
confirmation from the Almighty of the direction he had initiated. So, his son,
in turn, the Emperor Constantine V, something of an amateur theologian, decided
to copperfasten his father's endeavours by calling a Church Council which would
endorse the principles of iconoclasm.
It
was this Constantine V who best expressed the difficulty of icon painting: 'We
ask you how is it possible to depict our Lord Jesus Christ who is only one
person of two natures, immaterial and material, through their union without
confusion?'[1]
In other words, he was posing the dilemma for the defenders of icons that if
they said the icon was depicting Christ as man only, they were guilty of
Nestorianism, the great heresy which separated the human element from the
divine; if they said the icon represented Christ as both God and man, they were
guilty of the monophysite heresy which refused to separate the incomprehensible
divinity from the humanity.
There
were 338 bishops at the council which met in Constantinople
from 2 February to 8 August 754. Afterwards, it was suggested that the emperor
put undue pressure on those bishops present, but whether he did or not, the council
ratified the iconoclastic charter.
Later,
iconoclasm was defeated, the above Council declared heretical, and icons,
images, and representations of Christ, the Virgin Mary, the saints and angels,
were not just allowed back into Christian churches and dwelling-places, but
were declared to be an essential part of the Christian heritage.
This
war was not won without a great deal of struggle, time, argument and even
bloodshed. It took centre stage as the most important battle in Byzantium
And
most denominations of Christianity are involved in this declaration, including
Roman Catholicism, because it was pronounced by what was the Seventh Ecumenical
Council, held in Nicea from 24 September to 23 October in 787 and gained
recognition from the five great patriarchates of the time: Alexandria ,
Antioch , Constantinople, Jerusalem
and Rome
We
retain, without introducing anything new . . . the representation of painted
images . . . because of the belief in the true and non-illusory Incarnation of
God the Word, for our benefit. For things which presuppose each other are
mutually revelatory.
Since this is the case, following the royal
path and teaching divinely inspired by our Holy Fathers and the Tradition of
the Catholic Church - for we know that it is inspired by the Holy Spirit who
lives in it - we decide in all correctness and after a thorough examination,
that, just as the holy and vivifying cross, similarly the holy and precious
icons painted with colours . . . should be placed in the holy churches . . . on
walls, on boards, in houses and on roads, whether these are icons of our Lord
and Saviour, Jesus Christ, or our Spotless and Sovereign Lady, the holy Mother
of God, or the holy angels and holy and venerable saints.10
This milestone in the evolution of Christianity links the icons to the incarnation. If Jesus Christ actually became man and lived an historical life on earth then it must be possible to depict that life and represent his features in pictorial form.’
So on this first Sunday of Lent we rejoice in the Ikon of God that is Christ and our own individual destinies to become Ikons of the Lord in our Divinity and Humanity....
Happy Lent!
Peter
7 Hans Belting, Likeness
and Image, A History of the Image before the Era of Art, The University of Chicago
8 Patrologiae cursus, series Græca, ed. J.P. Migne, Paris 1857, Vol.
94, col. 1337 [De imaginibus oratio, 3, 16]. St. John London
[1]
The emperor drew up a series of questions for the bishops meeting at the
Council of Constantinople from 2nd February to 8th August
754. These questions can be found in Textus
byzantinos ad Iconomachiam pertinentes in usum academicum, edited by H.
Hennephof, Leiden
9 Nicée II,
787-1987: Douze siècles d’images religieuses, ed F. Boespflug & N.
Losskey, Paris, Les editions du Cerf, 1987.
10 Vittorio Peri, 'The Church of Rome and the
Ecclesiastical Problems Raised by Iconoclasm'
Icons, Windows on Eternity, Theology and Spirituality in Colour, compiled
by Gennadios Limouris, WCC Publications, Geneva, 1990, p.28-29.
No comments:
Post a Comment