Icons

THEODOR DAMIAN

The theology of the image of God represents one of the principal Orthodox Christian doctrines that has enjoyed a great level of attention and development over the centuries. This theology, closely linked to the whole problem of Christology, has generated and has become a criterion, first, of the legitimization of the tradition of the icon in the early church and second, in the Orthodox tradition after the great schism, until the present day.

In Orthodoxy the icon is understood as a sign of the divine presence in the world and as a reminder of our essential relation­ship with God. The icons were used in the worship of the early church. They expressed an incarnational focus of thinking and were considered complementary to the gospel, as both things spoke of the same saving events.

In the early church not everybody was in favor of the use of icons liturgically; how­ever, both groups lived together without serious conflict. There were some church fathers who spoke against the use of icons and several others who approved them in this early period.

A special confirmation of their existence and acceptance was given at the Quinisext Council (692) held in Constantinople under Emperor Justinian II whose Canon 82 states: “The Christian images are legiti­mate. They are accepted by the Church and even considered useful, because by the fact of representing Christ they remind all of his salvific work.” The synod even decided to forbid the representation of Christ in symbols (such as the Lamb that had become popular in western art to “stand in for” the Savior) so as to encourage the iconography of his human face and figure.

The history of the veneration of icons witnessed periods of great troubles and misunderstandings. The chief controversy over the legitimacy of images, especially as that broke out in the two periods of Byzan­tine Iconoclasm, was based on a literal interpretation of the second commandment of the Decalogue which forbids the creation of idolatrous images and bans their wor­ship. The controversy also arose because of Eastern influences on Byzantine Christian­ity from Judaism and Islam, as well as because of the iconoclasts’ desire to “reform and purify” the content of worship.

Whatever the political and social con­texts surrounding Iconoclasm, the major theological aspect of this controversy was related to the identity of Christ. Who is he? This was, and remains, the central theme of the dispute between iconoclasts and iconodules. Orthodoxy’s vindication of the use of icons in worship stressed that they legitimately represented the divine Lord, precisely because he had been truly incar­nated as God who was also truly man. Mate­riality was thus a genuine sacrament of the divine presence. The fight against icons involved people of all categories of life up to the highest level. The most influential iconoclasts, however, were the emperors of the isaurian dynasty and their soldiers, who made their views felt dynamically because of their social power. When they engaged in the controversy, the iconoclastic rulers tried to convert to their side the representatives of the church; when they did not succeed, the emperors simply replaced them with conformers who shared, or at least did not openly oppose, their views. The persecution involved fines, flogging, exile, mutilation and torture, and sometimes even death.

Plate 35 Russian Orthodox icon of the Virgin Mary, Theotokos, or Mother of God. Photo by John McGuckin.

Byzantine iconoclasm occurred in two major phases. The first started with Emperor Leo III the Isaurian (717–41) and in particular with the repressive edict of 726, followed later by another in 730 when the icons were denounced as idols. It continued under Emperor Constantine V Copronymos (741–75), the son of Leo III, and lasted until 775 when Constantine died. In his zeal against the icons Con­stantine convoked the iconoclastic Synod of Hieria in 754, where the icons were condemned in christological terms. Since Christ was possessed of a divine and a human nature, it was argued, icons cannot depict him authentically, since the wood and paint can only represent a symbol of his material nature. Icons were thus classed alongside the anti-Chalcedonian Christology as either “Monophysitic” or “Nestorian” (confusing or dividing the two natures of Christ). It would be left to the works of Sts.

John of Damascus and Theodore Studite, as well as Patriarch Germanos of Constanti­nople, to make an answer to these charges and to develop the church’s theology of the icon extensively.

Between 775 and 780 Emperor Leo IV the Khazar reigned, the son of Constantine V, who was neither an iconodule (one who venerates icons), nor an iconoclast (one who fights those who venerate icons). There was a respite between the two phases (780–813) when the Empress Irene (mother of Constantine VI Porphyrogennetos, who was aged 10 when he became emperor in 780) convened a synod in Nicea in 787 (Council of Nicea II) in order to restore the veneration of icons in the churches. This synod, the seventh and last of the ecumenical councils of the church, was presided over by Patriarch Tarasius. It confirmed that the use of icons was already an ecclesiastical tradition, and decided that church traditions ought to be preserved reverently, and without inno­vations; whether these longstanding tradi­tions were written or oral. The painting of icons was declared such a foundational tra­dition which is in conformity with the gospel. Icon and gospel were indeed complementary to each other.

The synod of 787 also made clear the critically important distinction between the veneration of icons (proskynesis) and adoration (latreia). The first (veneration) is given by Christians to holy persons and things (including images of Christ, his Mother, and his saints); the latter (adora­tion) is due, in spirit and truth, to God alone. The distinction introduced an important semantic sophistication into the church’s understanding of prayer, rever­ence, and the sacramentality of icons. It was based on the teaching of St. Basil the Great, echoed by St. John of Damascus, which stated that whoever venerates an image in fact venerates only the person there depicted, since the reverence shown to the icon passes immediately as honor given to its archetype.

The second phase of the iconoclastic crisis started with Emperor Leo V the Armenian (813–20) and lasted until the death of Emperor Theophilus in 842. Leo V also convened a synod in Constantinople in order to condemn the statements of the synod of Nicea of 787 and to restore the teaching of the iconoclastic synod of Hieria. Between 820 and 829 Emperor Michael II, while still prohibiting icons (though this time only in the city of Constantinople), did not advance his policy of hostility to the point of persecution. His successor, Emperor Theophilus (829–42), admitted that icons could be useful decorations in the church, but commanded that they were not to be “worshipped.” When Theophilus died in 842 his wife Theodora became regent for her son Michael. Being a fervent iconodule, she appointed Methodius as patriarch and in 843 con­vened a local synod in Constantinople where icons were restored and definitely established in the church as being essential to its worship, and as important theological symbols of true Orthodoxy. On this occasion the synod decided that the first Sunday of Great Lent should be instituted as the “Sunday of Orthodoxy,” in perpetual memory of the triumph of the icons against their persecutors.

St. John of Damascus (ca. 675-ca. 750) was the first great defender of icons. He developed his apologia in a more general manner, yet in a literary style and with a logic that greatly appealed to the public. Together with Patri­arch Germanos he offered strong resistance to the iconoclastic pressure. His apologe­tic model was followed by Patriarch Nicephorus (758–828). The defense of icons was subsequently undertaken by St. Theodore the Studite (759–826), who was more specific in the theological development of his arguments, especially basing them on, and elaborating them in relation to, the mystery of the hypostatic union of the two natures in Christ. To ques­tions related to the identity of Christ the defenders of icon veneration responded clearly: in the womb of the Holy Virgin, the second person of the Holy Trinity, the divine Logos, became human being; such that Jesus was true God and true man. The icon is thus an authentic depiction of Christ and graced as a holy thing in a way compa­rable to the manner in which his real humanity was the authentic bearer of the full divine presence.

In reference to the iconoclasts’ invoca­tion of the second commandment of the Decalogue, which forbade the worship of idols, the defenders of icons explained that figurative representations had indeed been forbidden by God in the Old Testament for the sake of protecting the Jews from falling into idolatry, but that all depictions were not so forbidden (the specifics relating the carving of the ark [Ex. 25.18–22] for example, or the figures of Cherubim on the Temple Veil, or the graphic symbol of the serpent in the desert [Num. 21.8–9]). In fact, all the texts from the Old Testament that the iconoclasts mistakenly interpreted as banning all graphic representations in worship should rather be seen to refer to the interdiction of false idols, through which the divine transcendence was inter­preted wrongly by simpler minds before the time of the incarnation. Idolatry foolishly maintains that the infinity of God can be contained within and by the idol. When the problem of the idols was no longer present, however, as in the case of the instructions for Temple worship in the Old Testament, or in the case of the illumined church celebrating the incarnation of the Lord, then the divine attitude toward icono- graphic representations has to be seen as completely different. God not only does not stop them, but on the contrary, he commands and commends them. The Orthodox Church thus considered the Old Testament-based interdiction of the image as being a provisional, pedagogical mea­sure. The difference between icon and idol becomes evident since the idol pertains to polytheism while the icon pertains to the divine economy which has overthrown idolatry from (Christian) society. The Old Testament interdiction of images was disputed by the iconodules through the comparison that they made between the two testaments; using the parallel between law and grace as it is found in the Pauline theology. They invoked the text of St. Paul (Gal. 3.23) from which one sees the inferi­ority of the law compared to the time of faith (grace); thus, as the Old Testament could not be compared in authority to the New, the character of this commandment (circumstantial, contextual, and transitory) needed also to be seen in the light of the new principles of monotheistic worship established in and by the incarnation. The iconodules also invoked the assertion of St. Paul (Heb. 10.1) regarding the law as being a shadow, and the Christians as living in the era of grace, not of law. If the law still held literal validity in all respects, they argued, Christians would also need to keep its other imperatives, such as the Sabbath or circumcision. But this would clearly be to deny the radical new element of the religion of the incarnation, which the icon celebrates.

According to St. John of Damascus, if, in the Old Testament, the direct revelation of God was manifested only through the word, then now, in the New Testament, it has been manifested through word and image alike, because the divine unseen has become the seen, and what was non-representable has now been truly represented. Thus, in the icon, the depiction of this mystery is made possible. The basis of the true representative character ofthe icon consists in the decision of God himself to assume a visible human face in the incarnation of his Son. Christ, being the divine image par excellence, thus represents the fulfillment of all images from the Old Testament, and fulfils them all. In short, the incarnation of the divine Logos makes the icon an effective instru­ment of final revelation and thus of the divine grace of that saving revelation. This is the point of departure of all Orthodox teaching on the icon.

This doctrine about the capacity of the uncircumscribable God to be “circumscribed” (the semantic term is closely related to the word for drawing, or image making) in the incarnation ofhis Son (and this understood as a basis for the making of icons) was formulated at the Third Ecumenical Council at Ephesus in 431, where Mary was declared to be not merely Anthropotokos (Mother of a man), and not even Christotokos (Mother of the Christ), but precisely and wondrously, Theotokos (the very Mother of God). Because of this mystical hypostatic union of God and his flesh, the church can legiti­mately use the paradoxical language of the capacity of the uncircumscribable God to be circumscribed, and can legitimately apply the sign of the icon in its worship. The incarnation, however, represents in itself an abiding paradox, and this quality passes on into the icon, as well.

In turning to the incarnation as the basis for the possibility of the icon, the iconodules affirmed as the teaching of the Orthodox Church that what appears as presented by the icon is not the nature of the Son of God, but his hypostasis as incarnated. The iconoclasts had raised the question: “What do we actually see represented in the icon? The humanity or the divinity of Christ?” Theodore the Studite, speaking for the iconodules in general, answered with an apologia based upon the theology of similarity and dissimilarity between image and prototype. The icon or image is dissimilar to the pro­totype as far as nature is concerned, but it is, at the same time, similar to the prototype as far as the hypostasis and name are concerned. Thus, in the case of the icon, it is not just one of the two natures of christ that is represented, but both of them, hypo- statically joined as in the single incarnate Lord. Following from this, the iconodule theologians made it clear that in orthodox theology the icon is a real “incarnation” of the image of christ (or of the saints) and is a fundamental witness to Christian anthro­pology. if one were to reject the icon on theological grounds, therefore, it would be tantamount to rejecting fundamental truths of the real incarnation of Christ.

The incarnation as foundation of the the­ology of the icon gives it a dynamic, rather than a static or merely representational role in the life of the church. The use of icons in the church of the first centuries illustrates the conviction that, from Christ onward, the icon is not only permissible, but also consti­tutes a fundamental way of transmitting and maintaining alive, in the conscience of Christians, the mystery that in the incarna­tion of the son the full revelation of God was given within time and space. By means of the iconoclastic controversy, and its atten­dant persecutions, the orthodox Church was enabled to consolidate its theological perspectives on the incarnation and to strengthen its unity and ecumenicity.

in orthodox tradition the icon cannot be separated from its ecclesiastical liturgical context. in this liturgical dimension the icon shows with precision the transforma­tive character of the work of the Holy Spirit in the church. An icon expresses the artistic and spiritual struggle, indeed the suffering, of the iconographer, offered for the benefit of fellow believers. it also shows at one and the same moment the spiritual struggle (for the world) of the one it depicts (whether

Christ, the Virgin, or a saint) and the glorious fulfillment of that struggle. In the context of the heart of the Christian expe­rience, in the Eucharistic liturgy, the icon of Christ (or of the saint) promotes the open­ing up of the inner icon of the one who prays, to its penetration by the sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit. Icons, therefore, never belong to an individual. Regardless of where they are (ecclesiastic or domestic), they actually always belong to the church as a whole. They express the church, intro­duce us to it and to the communion of the saints, to that total communion of those who have already left this earthly life, as well as the communion of those who still live here yet are on the way to the kingdom. The icons affirm all of the church’s belong­ing to God.

For St. John of Damascus, icons are a sacrament, not by virtue of divine manifestation, but through the energy of a divinely graced presence. Considering their whole place and liturgical role, their presence and participation in the church’s invocation (epiclesis), and because of what they represent, icons unquestionably receive the grace of the Holy Spirit. Also, because the veneration of the icon does not pass to the material object but always to that sacred figure depicted on it, then in just the same manner, a spiritual blessing returns from the icon. For the grace of the Holy Spirit who lived in that holy person remains also in his or her enduring spiritual exis­tence. Thus, because the icon is a means of communion in the church between that sacred figure and us, it derives its sanctify­ing power from the grace of that holy person who is always ready for communion. St. John of Damascus teaches that since during their lives the saints have been full of the Holy Spirit, after their deaths the grace of the Holy Spirit continues to live in their souls, and in their bodies in the grave, as well as in their forms on the icons; a presence not manifested in virtue of essence, but in terms of grace and energy.

The icon must also be considered as a doxological expression of the divine lit­urgy. It is a theology in images. The icons of the Orthodox Church graphically help believers to have a deeper understanding of the liturgical texts, and serve as aids for their reading so that it might become contemplative. This notion emphasizes for us the theological and didactic role of icons in the spiritual understanding of the divine liturgy. In terms of what they represent, icons are an open Bible or even a theological treatise. Throughout Christian history they have spoken with power and beauty and grace. Sometimes they teach in a simple way about events from church life or from the history of salvation. Sometimes they are full of profound depths and hint at unseen mysteries. Through the details of their representations they stimulate meditation and reflection. Through their colors they enchant the eye and keep the believer’s heart close to them. But especially, through the way that they are reverently made in the church, through the transparency that they manifest, they serve to open the spirit toward a profound longing for God.

In the sentiment of St. Basil the Great and St. John of Damascus, what the word is for the power of hearing, the icon is for the power of seeing. Since the prototype of the icon is Christ himself, the icon is an energized intermediary, a way that helps us follow the Lord so that through him and in him we may stand in communion with God.

SEE ALSO: Council of Nicea II (787); Ecu­menical Councils; Heresy; Iconography, Styles of; Logos Theology; Monasticism; Patristics; Quinisext Council (Council in Trullo) (692); St. John of Damascus (ca. 675-ca. 750); St. Theodore the Studite (759–826)

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS

Damian, T. (2002) Theological and Spiritual Dimensions of Icons According to St. Theodore of Studion. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press.

Damian, T. (2003) Implicatiile Spirituale ale Teologiei Icoanei. Cluj: Eikon.

John of Damascus (1989) Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, in P. Schaff and H. Wace (eds.) The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers second series, vol. 9. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

McGuckin, J. A. (1993) “The Theology of Images and the Legitimation of Power in Eighth Century Byzantium,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 37, 1: 39–58.

Meyendorff, J. (1979) Byzantine Theology, Historical Trends and Doctrinal Issues. New York: Fordham University Press.

Nyssen, W. (1975) Das Zeugnis des Bildes im fruhen Byzanz. Bucharest: Institului Biblic si de Misiune Ortodoxa.

Ouspensky, L. andLossky, V. (1989) The Meaning of Icons. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press.

Staniloae, D. (1987) Chipul Nemuritor al lui Dumnezeu. Craiova: Mitropoliei Olteniei.

Theodore Studites, St. (1903) Opera Omnia, in J. P. Migne (ed.) Patrologia Graeca, vol. 99. Paris: Garnier.

Ugolnik, A. (1989) The Illuminating Icon. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.