The perspective of the Icon

by Metropolitan John Zizioulas

If Christ acts in the history being true and in the truth participating in the evolution of history, and if this happens just because Christ is also the limits (the purpose) of history, Then the truth of history seems to lie in something paradox: it is defined through its end, while at the same time the end is part of its evolution. How can this be expressed theologically? For the interpretation might be enough a saying of Maximus: "Things in the Old (Testament) are shadow, while things in the New Testament are an image and the things to be are the truth"[i].

At first glance, this allegation is strange, for this is how the incarnation seems to be a reality less true than the Second Coming. With the usual understanding of reality according to rationalism and historicism, we have the tendency to consider as "truths" and "facts" just those things that can be verified through experience or those correlating to certain rules or beliefs that we recognize as true. But the used term "icon" does not mean in this case this specific kind of reality of the truth nor does it mean a loss of reality. In all the Greek Fathers, with exception the origenic tradition[ii], the icon always states something real and so true, as much as the truth. The long dispute on the place of the icons in the Church, during the eighth (8^th) and ninth (9^th) century, aimed exactly on the question of the possibility to present the truth in some way in the form of an icon. The discerning line between the two sides in this dispute lies exactly there in the acceptance or rejection of the truth of the incarnation in its relation to history and the creation[iii]. The iconoclasts gather their arguments from origenism, whose understanding of history we have just narrated; the iconolaters on the other hand rely on the fact, that the incarnation the conceivement of the truth as an icon makes it not only possible but inevitable as well[iv]. If of course the icon or the truth of history is no less true than the truth of eschatology, what sense has then, using the term "truth" on the eschats?

The term icon is understood often by the Greek Fathers through the prism of Platonism. The extract narrated though from Maximus shows clearly, that this is an error. In platonic thought the icon should not have its truth placed in the future; just what has come is much more of decisive meaning, because it builds from the truth an object of memory and mainly from the connection of the soul to the steady world of ideas. The authentic tradition of the Greek Fathers never accepted the platonic perception -as it was adapted among others from Augustin- according to which perfection belongs only to the original state of things. A psychological-retrospective understanding of memory also remained foreign to it; since the second in Trullo (692) the symbolism in iconography was rejected clearly. In this important extract Maximus shows once again, that the truth on the sum of the Greek Fathers is something radically different from that of Platonism. At this point we should look into the roots of the iconical language of the Fathers.

Of course this problem is complicated and cannot be exposed here thoroughly. Perhaps the suggestion that the iconical language of the Greek Fathers is understood better, if one sees it under the light of the ancient apocalyptic theology, as it was developed originally in the proto-christianic tradition of the Syrian-Palestinian location and from there infiltrated into the Eucharistic Liturgies of the East. In this tradition the truth does not appear as a product of the spirit but as a "visit" and "scene" (see John 1,14) of the eschatological and meta-historical reality, which infiltrates into history in order to open it to the fact of communion. This creates a vision of the truth, not in the sense of the platonic or mystical viewing, in which the soul or the mind of man link to the divine, but in the sense of reproducing new relations, a new world, the destination of which is taken up through a community.

By establishing onto the revelation, the iconical language relieves the truth from our own "under-standing" and protects it from the guidance and transformation into objectivity. It is translocated also in a relationship, in the sense, that the truth of a being cannot be understood differently rather than through the "mirror" of another being. One can use a remarkable explanation that Athanassius gave, for the sense icon, which refers to God: Christ is the icon of the father exactly because the Father sees Himself in him[v]. The iconical language appears exactly there, where the truth is identified with communion. This is an indication, that the truth remains always greater from our own perception; it is something relating to the future and requires faith, hope and love.

If we now want to summarize this effort of the synthesis for the understanding of the truth in the Greek Fathers, then we can say that the most important step of the Greek Fathers lies in the identification of the truth with society.

The word identification must be clearly underlined, because this synthesis should not be confused to other connections of the truth and society, like they appeared in the history of the Christian theology. If society is a sense, added to the being, then we no longer have the same icon. The decisive point rather lies in the fact, that the being consists as communion and only in this way can truth and society be identified.

That this identification sets for theology a particularly difficult problem becomes obvious, if one applies the truth in existence. Our situation, of the fallen existence, was mainly characterized through the fact that our approach to the truth of the being consists primarily from the communion. Salvation through truth depends in the end through the identification of the truth with society. The part that follows in our research will present certain aspects of this problem. The synthesis of the Greek Fathers, which we tried to present in this part, will be useful in the following two parts of this research.

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[i] Maximus, Comments in the eccl. Hierarcy 3,3,2.

[ii] See further up, footnote 28.

[iii] See. Meyendorff, Le Christ dans la theologie Byzantine, Paris 1969, 235-263.

[iv] For the sources, look at footnote 88.

[v] Athanassius, Κατά Αρειανών I, 20-21.

Sayings of Elder Porphyrios

The crucial thing is to enter the Church – to unite with our fellow beings, with everyone's joys and sorrows, to feel them as our own, to pray for all, to ache for their salvation, to forget about ourselves, to do everything for others, like Christ did for us. In the Church we become one with every sorrowful, aching and sinful person. Nobody should want to be saved alone, without the salvation of others. It is wrong for one to pray for himself to be saved. We must love others and pray that no one be lost; that everyone enters the Church. This is what matters. And it’s with this desire that one should leave the world to go to the monastery or the desert.

In the Church, which has the mysteries that save, there is no desperation. We may be extremely sinful. However, we confess, the priest reads the prayer over us and so we are forgiven and we move towards immortality, without any anxiety, without any fear.

Whoever lives in Christ, becomes one with Him, with His Church. He lives something crazy! This life is different to human life. It's joy, light, gladness, uplift. This is the Church's life, the Gospel's life, God's Kingdom. “The Kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). Christ comes in us and we are in Him. And just like a piece of iron placed in fire becomes fire and light; outside the fire, again it turns to dark iron, darkness.

We need to pay attention to the basic part too. We need to live the mysteries, especially the mystery of Holy Communion. It’s in these that Orthodoxy is found. Christ is offered to the Church through the mysteries and primarily through Holy Communion.

For many, however, our religion is a struggle, agony and anxiety. For this reason  many “religious” people are considered unhappy, because others see their bad state. Indeed, if one is unable to see the depth of the religion and does not live it, the religion ends up a sickness and a terrible one. So terrible, that one loses control over his actions, becomes weak-willed and powerless, is in agony and under stress and behaves under the influence of an evil spirit (meaning demonic energy). He does prostrations, cries, shouts, is supposedly humble, and all this humility is a satanic act. For some of these people the religion is like a type of hell. In church they do prostrations, make the sign of the cross, they say “we are sinners, unworthy,” and as soon as they get out, start blaspheming all things holy when someone annoys them just a little. It is obvious that there is a demon in the middle.

In reality, Christianity transforms a person and heals him. The most important prerequisite, however, for someone to perceive and distinguish truth is humility. Egoism darkens one's mind, confuses him, leads him into deception, into heresy. It is very important for one to comprehend the truth.

Often, neither toil, nor repentance, nor the sign of the cross attract grace. There are secrets. The most important one is to avoid forms and go to the substance. Everything that happens must happen with love.

When you don't live with Christ, you live in melancholy, in sadness, in stress, in grief. You don't live correctly. So then many anomalies appear also in the body. The body gets affected, the endocrinous glands, the liver, the spleen, the pancreas, the stomach. You are told: “In order to be healthy, you must have some milk in the morning, an egg, butter and a couple of rusks.” And yet, if you live correctly, if you love Christ, you are just fine with an apple and an orange. The greatest of all medicine is to offer oneself in devotion to Christ. Everything gets healed. Everything functions properly. God's love transforms all; it alters, it sanctifies, it corrects, it changes, it modifies everything.

When you love Christ, despite all your weaknesses and their conscious acknowledgment, you still have the certainty that you have overcome death, because you reside in the communion Christ's love.

We need to feel Christ as our friend. He is our friend. He confirms this Himself when He says: “You are my friends...” (John 15:14). We need to look at Him and approach Him as a friend. Do we fall? Do we sin? We should run to Him with feelings of familiarity, in love and trust; not in fear of punishment but in courage granted by the sense of friendship. And say to Him: “Lord, I did it, I fell, forgive me”. But at the same time we need to feel He loves us, and tenderly accepts us with love and forgives us. We need not be separated by sin from Christ. When we believe that He loves us and we love Him, we will not feel estranged and divided, even when we sin. We have secured His love and no matter how we may behave, He loves us.

Angelos Sikelianos: αγραφον

Once at sunset Jesus and his disciples

were on the road outside the walls of Zion

when suddenly they came to where the town

for years had dumped its garbage.

Crowning the highest pike, its legs

pointing at the sky, lay a dog’s bloated carcass;

such a stench rose up from it that all the disciples, hands

cupped over their nostrils, drew back as one man.

But Jesus stood there, and He gazed

so closely at the carcass that one disciple

called out from a distance,

Rabbi, don’t you smell that dreadful stench?

How can you go on standing there?

Jesus, His eyes fixed on the carcass,

answered : If your breath is pure, you’ll smell

the same stench inside the town behind us, but

Look – that dog’s teeth glitter in the sun :

like hailstones, like a lilly, beyond decay,

a great pledge, mirror of the Eternal, but also

the harsh lightning flash, the hope of Justice!

And now, Lord I,

the very least of men, stand before You,

give me, as now I walk outside this Zion,

as I walk through this terrible stench,

one single moment of Your holy calm,

so that I may also pause

among this carrion and with my own eyes

somewhere see deep inside me,

beyond the world’s decay, like the dog’s teeth

at which, Lord, that sunset You gazed in wonder :

a great pledge, mirror of the Eternal, but also

the harsh lightning-flash, the hope of Justice! 

Άγγελος Σικελιανός (1884-1951)

(translated by Edmund Keeley & Philip Sherrard)



Phenomenalogos: Sabbath & Love

What does love have to do with a vomiting fish?

http://phenomenalogos.blogspot.com/2012/09/sabbath-love.html



St. Isaac the Syrian: The Ark & The Cross

The limitless power of God dwells in the cross, just as it resided in an incomprehensible way in the ark which was venerated amidst great honor and awe by the Jewish people, performing by it miracles and awesome signs in the midst of those who were not ashamed to call it ‘God’ (Num. 10:35&36), that is, they would gaze upon it in awe as though upon God, because of the glory of God’s honored name which was upon it.  That power which existed in the ark is believed by us to exist in this revered form of the cross, which we hold in honor in great awareness of God.[1]

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[1] II/11,4

Memory Eternal!

Phenomenalogos: Time & Freedom

http://phenomenalogos.blogspot.com/2012/09/time-freedom.html

Is Man Mortal or Immortal?

Saint Theophilus of Antioch Book II, Chapter XXVII (180-185 A.D.)
But some one will say to us, Was man made by nature mortal? Certainly not. Was he, then, immortal? Neither do we affirm this. But one will say, Was he, then, nothing? Not even this hits the mark. He was by nature neither mortal nor immortal. For if He had made him immortal from the beginning, He would have made him God. Again, if He had made him mortal, God would seem to be the cause of his death. Neither, then, immortal nor yet mortal did He make him, but, as we have said above, capable of both; so that if he should incline to the things of immortality, keeping the commandment of God, he should receive as reward from Him immortality, and should become God; but if, on the other hand, he should turn to the things of death, disobeying God, he should himself be the cause of death to himself. For God made man free, and with power over himself. That, then, which man brought upon himself through carelessness and disobedience, this God now vouchsafes to him as a gift through His own philanthropy and pity, when men obey Him. For as man, disobeying, drew death upon himself; so, obeying the will of God, he who desires is able to procure for himself life everlasting. For God has given us a law and holy commandments; and every one who keeps these can be saved, and, obtaining the resurrection, can inherit incorruption.

Fr. George Florovsky: The New Creation

The primary task of the historical Church is the proclamation of another world "to come." The Church bears witness to the New Life, disclosed and revealed in Christ Jesus, the Lord and Saviour. This it does both by word and deed. The true proclamation of the Gospel would be precisely the practice of this New Life: to show faith by deeds (cf. Matt. 5:16).

The Church is more than a company of preachers, or a teaching society, or a missionary board. It has not only to invite people, but also to introduce them into this New Life, to which it bears witness. It is a missionary body indeed, and its mission field is the whole world. But the aim of its missionary activity is not merely to convey to people certain convictions or ideas, not even to impose on then a definite discipline or a rule of life, but first of all to introduce them into the New Reality, to convert them, to bring them through their faith and repentance to Christ Himself, that they should be born anew in Him and into Him by water and the Spirit. Thus the ministry of the Word is completed in the ministry of the Sacraments.

"Conversion" is a fresh start, but it is only a start, to be followed by a long process of growth. The Church has to organize the new life of the converted. The Church has, as it were, to exhibit the new pattern of existence, the new mode of life, that of the "world to come." The Church is here, in this world, for its salvation. But just for this reason it has to oppose and to renounce "this" world. God claims the whole man, and the Church bears witness to this "totalitarian" claim of God revealed in Christ. The Christian has to be a "new creation." Therefore he cannot find a settled place for himself within the limits of the "old world." In this sense the Christian attitude is, as it were, always revolutionary with regard to the "old order" of "this world." Being "not of this world" the Church of Christ "in this world" can only be in permanent opposition, even if it claims only a reformation of the existing order. In any case, the change is to be radical and total.

Fr. George Florovsky: The Theanthropic Union and the Church

Christ conquered the world. This victory consists in His having created His own Church. In the midst of the vanity and poverty, of the weakness and suffering of human history, He laid the foundations of a "new being." The Church is Christ’s work on earth; it is the image and abode of His blessed Presence in the world. And on the day of Pentecost The Holy Spirit descended on the Church, which was then represented by the twelve Apostles and those who were with them. He entered into the world in order to abide with us and act more fully than He had ever acted before; "for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified" (John 7:39). The Holy Spirit descended once and for always. This is a tremendous and unfathomable mystery. He lives and abides ceaselessly in the church. In the Church we receive the Spirit of adoption (Rom. 8:15). Through reaching towards and accepting the Holy Ghost we become eternally God’s. In the Church our salvation is perfected; the sanctification and transfiguration, the theosis of the human race is accomplished.
Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus: [Outside the Church there is no salvation]. All the categorical strength and point of this aphorism lies in its tautology. Outside the Church there is no salvation, because salvation is the Church. For salvation is the revelation of the way for every one who believes in Christ's name. This revelation is to be found only in the Church. In the Church, as in the Body of Christ, in its theanthropic organism, the mystery of incarnation, the mystery of the "two natures," indissolubly united, is continually accomplished. In the Incarnation of the Word is the fullness of revelation, a revelation not only of God, but also of man. "For the Son of God became the Son of Man," writes St. Irenaeus, "to the end that man too might become the son of God" (Adv. Haere. 3:10, 2). In Christ, as God-Man, the meaning of human existence is not only revealed, but accomplished. In Christ human nature is perfected, it is renewed, rebuilt, created anew. Human destiny reaches its goal, and henceforth human life is, according to the word of the Apostle, "hid with Christ in God" (Coloss. 3:3). In this sense Christ is the "Last Adam" (1 Cor. 15:45), a true man. In Him is the measure and limit of human life. He rose "As the first fruits of them that are asleep" (1 Cor. 15:20-22). He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God. His Glory is the glory of all human existence. Christ has entered the pre-eternal glory; He has entered it as Man and has called the whole of mankind to abide with Him and in Him. "God, being rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, quickened us together with Christ ... and raised us up with Him, and made us to sit with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 2:4-6). Therein lies the mystery of the Church as Christ's Body. The Church is fulness, (Τò πληρωμα) that is, fulfilment, completion (Eph. 1:23). In this manner St. John Chrysostom explains the words of the Apostle: "The Church is the fulfilment of Christ in the same manner as the head completes the body and the body is completed by the head. Thus we understand why the Apostle sees that Christ, as the Head needs all His members. Because if many of us were not, one the hand, one the foot, one yet another member, His body would not be complete. Thus His body is formed of all the members. This means, "That the head will be complete, only when the body is perfect; when we all are most firmly united and strengthened" (In Ephes. Hom. 3, 2; Migne, P.G. Ixii. c. 26). Bishop Theophanes repeats the explanation of Chrysostom: "The Church is the fulfilment of Christ in the same manner as the tree is the fulfilment of the grain. All that is contained in the grain in a condensed manner, receives its full development in the tree ... He Himself is complete and all-perfect, but not yet has He drawn mankind to Himself in final completeness. It is only gradually that mankind enters into Communion with Him and so gives a new fulness to His work, which thereby attains its full accomplishment (Explan. Of Ep. To Ephes. M. 1893, 2. pp. 93-94. For the same point of view, cf. the late Very Rev. J. Armitage Robinson, St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians, pp. 44-45, I. 403; short ed. pp. 57-60).
The Church is completeness itself; it is the continuation and the fulfilment of the theanthropic union. The Church is transfigured and regenerated mankind. The meaning of this regeneration and transfiguration is that in the Church mankind becomes one unity, "in one body" (Eph. 2:16). The life of the Church is unity and union. The body is "knit together" and "increaseth" (Col 2:19) in unity of Spirit, in unity of love. The realm of the Church is unity. And of course this unity is no outward one, but is inner, intimate, organic. It is the unity of the living body, the unity of the organism. The Church is a unity not only in the sense that it is one and unique; it is a unity, first of all, because its very being consists in reuniting separated and divided mankind. It is this unity which is the "sobornost" or catholicity of the Church. In the Church humanity passes over into another plane, begins a new manner of existence. A new life becomes possible, a true, whole and complete life, a catholic life, "in the unity of the Spirit, in the bond of peace (Eph. 4:3). A new existence begins, a new principle of life, "Even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us ... that they may be one even as We are one" (John 17:21-23).
This is the mystery of the final reunion in the image of the Unity of the Holy Trinity. It is realized in the life and construction of the Church, it is the mystery of sobornost, the mystery of catholicity.