He is the Icon of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. -Colossians 1:15-17
The Person of Christ, as experienced in the Orthodox East, played a very specific historical role. Instead of creating primarily a theory of the cosmos, a philosophical or ethical system, it was lived and experienced par excellence as the Church, as the Eucharistic congregation. As a gathering of believers in a particular place and at a specific time to celebrate the Eucharist, to constitute in unison the people of God, the Body of Christ that draws its identity from the eschatological expectation of the Resurrected Christ and his kingdom. The Person of Christ influenced art in this way; as a living presence of Christ within the Eucharist and as a painted narration of this event on the walls of the liturgical space within which the Eucharist took place. -Fr. Stamatios
“Of old, God the incorporeal and uncircumscribed was never depicted. Now, however, when God is seen clothed in flesh, and conversing with men, I make an image of the God whom I see. I do not worship matter, I worship the God of matter, who became matter for my sake, and deigned to inhabit matter, who worked out my salvation through matter. I will not cease from honoring that matter which works my salvation. I venerate it, though not as God. How could God be born out of lifeless things? And if God's body is God by union, it is immutable.” –St. John Damaskinos
Within the Church Christ is known not as some initiate or religious leader but as the Theanthropos through whom we approach the Father, the source of light. And theology is not a science - not even sacred science- but the «mystery» that initiates the whole man into what is above nature and sense. And the icon is not a simple work of art or a religious picture but an incommutable and sacred liturgical vessel that sanctifies man and brings him into immediate relationship with the grace and state of being of the saint it shows forth. «With respect to the archetype the icon abides in it, makes it visible and is venerated with it» (St Theodore Studite, P.G. 99, 433A).
What is important is that we should understand how the Church, living in Christ Jesus, sees the theology of the saints, their holy relics, the icons and all its sacred vessels. They are all organically interconnected and from all of them there rises a universal hymn to the life-creating Trinity. This happens because everything depends on a life-creating centre — the Theanthropos «through whom we know the Father and through whom the Holy Spirit has come to dwell in the world». And He reveals to us through His incarnation the life hidden in the Holy Trinity («I have made known to you all I have heard from the Father»). He reveals to us the relationships between the three Persons. He gives life to all of us. He sanctifies and deifies our nature, soul and body. He unites us to each other. He reveals to us that we are one body and one spirit and He gives us the strength to bring this into effect. Because He Himself discloses to us, as the precise icon of the Father and as the stamp of His Person, the single and unique relationship He has with God the Father and with the Holy Spirit. And he who has seen the Lord has seen the Father through the Holy Spirit. «Thus the road to divine knowledge passes from the one Spirit through the one Son to the one Father. And conversely natural goodness and sanctification according to nature and the royal dignity come from the Father, through the only-begotten Son to the Spirit» (St Basil the Great, P.G. 32, 153B-C).The Orthodox liturgical icon is the irradiation of the life and faith of the Church that is itself the body of Christ and the communion of the Holy Spirit. It is the manifestation of the new mode of life and grace. And through the icons the believer receives the divine favour and through them his mind is raised up to the heavens.
- Archimandrite Vasileios
Byzantine art is for me the art of arts. I believe in it as I do religion. I do not deny this, but it even gives me great pleasure when, most of the time, someone uses it as an accusation. Only this art nurtures my soul with its deep and mysterious powers, it quenches the thirst which I feel in the dry desert which surrounds us. -Photios Kontoglou
No comments:
Post a Comment