Met. KALLISTOS Ware - The Holy Icon - Doorway into Heaven- Orthodox Christianity

he's telling danger come on y'all yes sir oh you're here for most - hero Christ is risen I'm very happy to be talking to you this afternoon though of course I feel deep regret that I'm not able to be at the Oriental elumen conference this summer I'm speaking from Constantinople from the patriarchal Church of st. George may the Paraclete the Spirit of Truth guide you in your consultations now it is my happiness to share with you informally some of my thoughts about the significance of the icon and the title that I've given to what I'm going to say is the holy icon door into the kingdom of heaven now I shall be speaking about things that are familiar to all of you but sometimes even familiar things need to be re emphasized when I began my career teaching in university my teacher Henry Chadwick said to me always remember that people like to be told things that they already know how central how fundamental are the holy icons in the spiritual life of the Christian East both Catholic and Orthodox how impoverished our life would be without the icons if we had no icons how much warmth how much joy would be lurking in the Christian East whether Catholic or Orthodox there is no act of prayer either in church or at home that is not accompanied by the holy icons they are with us everywhere and this afternoon I've brought with me a small icon that I always have when I am writing or when I am giving talks at conferences this is the icon of the angel of good silence it shows Christ in the form of an angel a Slovak blog or emote Sonia theologians have a tendency to say too much so I keep the icon of good silence in front of me when I'm giving talks or when I'm writing first start by asking what is an icon the word econ as we know means likeness reflection image when you look in the mirror and you see your own face what you are looking at is an icon of yourself when narcissus saw his face reflected in the pool of water and fell in love with what he saw he was looking at his own icon so the tone icon can have a very broad application but when we are speaking of the icon as part of our prayer then of course we need to qualify the word icon by saying the holy icon what then is a holy icon what special kind of image or reflection do we find in the holy icons an excellent definition is given to us in a text from the 8th century the life of son Steven the knew he died as one of the mutters in defense of the holy icons during the iconoclast controversy and he calls the icon a door the holy icon he says is said to be a door what does that mean the icon is a way of entry but entry into what it is a means of access access where it is a point of meeting and encounter with whom the answer to these questions is the icon is a door into the kingdom of heaven it is a means of access into the age to come it is a point of meeting and encounter with the communion of saints so the icon as a door fulfills a mediating function the icon makes persons and events present to us through the icon we meet the person that is shown to us whether it is Christ our Savior the mother of God one of the Angels one of the Saints through the icon we participate in the mystery that is depicted so the theology of the icon is a theology of prescence that is why I have called the icon not just a window that a door a window is something through which we look we gaze upon a landscape from a distance but a door is something through which we pass and we actually become part of the landscape or else because doors are too way the icon is a door through which others pass from the heavenly kingdom to meet us face to face so the icon then is a point of meeting a place of encounter it makes persons and things present to us immediately and personally Here I am standing in front of the icon screen in the patriarchal Church of George and Saint Simeon of Thessalonica writing in the early 15th century speaks of the icon screen as marking the frontier between Earth and heaven are we on earth but the icon screen is making the kingdom of heaven present to us so the icon screen marks the frontier the boundary between Earth and heaven but it's a boundary that does not divide the icon screen acts as a bridge through the icon screen the persons depicted upon it the person of Christ the high priest here the person the Holy Mother of God with the child here and beyond st. George and others belonging to the heavenly realm they are all made present to us sometimes people complain that the icon screen hides things but in what sort of that the Russian priest Marta father Pavel Florence key says the icon screen hides nothing it reveals things to us it reveals to us the heavenly kingdom it makes that heavenly kingdom directly present to us nothing is hidden by the icon screen but many spiritual realities are revealed and made present let's look at some of the consequences of this definition of the icon as a door a way of entry a point of meeting three consequences in particular I would like to mention first the icon exists in a context the context of prayer and worship and you take an icon out of that context it ceases to be truly a holy icon many people buy icons and hang them up on their walls and treat them simply as a work of art but an icon though it is a work of art is not to work about on a level with other works of art an icon is not something beautiful that you may admire and note the color and note the expression on the face is and speak of it as belonging to a particular period and showing the influence of some particular school if we merely treat an icon on this level the art historical level the aesthetic level we have missed the real point about the icon an icon is not just a work of art on a level with other works of art but part of an act of prayer and worship the art of the icon is par excellence a liturgical art that is the first consequence of regarding the icon as a door into the head the kingdom many years ago in England one Sunday newspaper I think it was the Sunday Times ran a feature article with interviews with different people who owned icons and most of them were clearly unbelievers though also it was evident that their icons meant a great deal to them they made remarks such as there's something different about an icon something mysterious something strange I don't like to sit smoking cigarettes in front of the icon the icon changes the atmosphere in my room the last person who was interviewed was the only one who was an Orthodox Christian and he was the only one who came to the real point what do your icons mean to you they asked the person in question was count Alexis wobblin Scoy who was the expert who advised the auctioneer's Christie's on sales of icons and he had formed a modest collection of his own and in answer to the question what does the icon mean to you he replied firmly I pray in front of my icons and there he had mentioned what makes the icon different what makes it mysterious what gives it its power the icon is part of an act of prayer so there is a first point consequence of regarding the icon Isadora the art of the icon is a liturgical art the Icahn is part of the liturgy and divorced from the liturgy it loses its true identity then a second point prayer and theology are inseparable liturgy and dogma cannot be separated as one of the Desert Fathers of the fourth century if Agrius of Pontus says the theologian is the one who prays and if you pray in truth you are a theologian so the art of the icon because it is a liturgical art is also a theological art the icon is theology in line and Carla there is an essential link between the icon and the gospel the gospel is the word proclaimed the icon is the word depicted and the two go together they are correlative and complementary the gospel is an icon in words and the icon is the gospel in pictures so the seventh ecumenical council the Second Council of Nicaea in 787 when defining the place of the icon in the Christian Church insisted that the icon is to be venerated in the same way as the book of the Gospels and also the cross this link between icon and gospel is greatly emphasized by some John of Damascus and his three harmonies on the holy icons are still the best patristic work for anyone to read who wishes to enter into the meaning of the icon you have rightly called your conference the oriental elumen conference that you are holding you have rightly called the icon an expression of the faith that's exactly the point the icon is part of Holy Tradition human creativity is not excluded different iconographer x' paint their own distinctive style of iconography but the icon does not depend simply on the invention or private imagination of the icon painter the icon expresses Holy Tradition and then a third consequence of the approach to the holy icons that i am outlining the art of the icon is not only a liturgical art and not only a theological art it is also sacramental as I have already commented the icon performs a mediating function it makes prescient just as the holy sacrament of the Eucharist makes Christ merely present to us in the gifts of bread and wine that have been consecrated and become his body and blood so on another level the icons make Christ present to us obviously in the case of the icons the presence of Christ is quite different from that of his presence in the Eucharist the icons are remain wood and paint while the bread and wine are not merely an icon of the body and blood of Christ but they are his true body and blood after the consecration nevertheless there is a real presence of Christ in his icon as the Second Council of Nicaea the seventh ecumenical council insisted divine grace is present in the icon and it is communicated to those who venerate let me in the second part of my talk put before you three quotations that may serve to guide and illuminate your discussions one quotation is from Scripture one from the liturgy and one from a novelist my scriptural quotation is from the prologue of st. John's Gospel John 1:14 the word became flesh and lived among us and we have seen his glory heaven in these words of some John we have the foundation of all Christian iconography the foundation and basis is the fact the reality of the Incarnation and this is a master theme of John of Damascus in the Old Testament he says it was not possible for there to be any icon of God no one has seen God at any time but this has been changed by the incarnation of God by the fact that the word has become flesh and so now God can be represented not God the Father but God the Son who reveals God's glory to us who became flesh and so says John of Damascus I can make an icon of the God who can be seen and we must go further than this if God can be represented God the Son made flesh made man then if he can be represented he must really represent it this was a key argument of the Icona duels the defenders of the holy icons in their struggle against the iconoclasts not to make an icon of Christ is to suggest that somehow his humanity is unreal imaginary a mere phantasm so the icon of Christ safeguards and guarantees our faith in the full reality of the Incarnation I make an icon of the God who can be seen as some John of Damascus then my second quotation from the divine liturgy and Here I am thinking of the phrase used after the narrative of the institution of the Eucharist and before the invocation of the spirit upon the holy gifts I am thinking of the act of offering that is made by the celebrant when he raises the pattern and chalice and says thine own Frontline own we offer unto thee in all things and for all things in this connection let us ask what is unique about the human animal that makes us different from the other animals often it is said the human animal is an animal that thinks cogito ergo sum as Descartes says but in fact it is clear that the higher Apes also do something very similar to thinking when confronted by problems and difficulties so perhaps thinking is not exclusively limited to humans again is sometimes said that the human animal has the power to build to alter the environment and yes that is true most of the animals just live in the world we humans me shape and refashion the world once I was traveling back from France and I suddenly realized I hadn't bought a present for my parents so I rushed into a shop and I saw a bottle with a squirrel on it a bottle of liqueur made from nuts and I bought it quickly and as I continued my journey I reflected yes squirrels gather nuts they bury them they forget where they put them they quarrel with other squirrels over there nuts all their human characteristics but there is one thing that squirrels don't do they don't make early care out of nuts only humans can do that actually the Lakia was very nasty it would have be much better just to have eaten the nuts on their own animals don't alter the environment but that's not entirely true beavers build dams bees construct honey combs so again this isn't unique to human beings what about tools it's often said what distinguishes man is that he is a craftsman uses tools but the higher apes use tools of a kind love often he said the human animal is an animal capable of love after the image of God the Holy Trinity very true but the animals often show love for one another they often live in community relationship is not a uniquely human quality animals will often be monogamous better than humans they form lifelong attachments and they show grief when they lose their partner so what makes the human animal unique to me we come closer to the truth of the matter if we say that the human animal is an animal that offers an animal that is a capable of Thanksgiving not just a logical and political animal but a Eucharistic animal only the human animal consciously with full freedom can offer the world back to God in grateful Eucharist so here perhaps we see the uniqueness of the human animal that the human animal can act as priests of the creation offering the world back to God this we do supremely in the Eucharist exactly at the high point in the offering when we say thine own from thine own we offer to thee but we are also exercising royal priesthood when we make holy icons and in many other ways too but particularly when we make holy icons the iconography takes wouldn't paint material elements in which God's glory is already present and then as a sub creator after the image of God the Creator he or she makes that glory manifest in a new way and in so doing he or she offers the creation back to God in grateful and joyful Eucharist so icon making is one form of our distinctive human privilege and vocation to be priests of the creation and so icon making has many ecological implications which I hope you will explore in your conference I come then to my third and final quotation and this is from Dostoyevsky in one of his novels he quotes the word he uses the words beauty will save the world the icon is an expression of divine beauty the theology of the icon is not just a theology of presence it is to use a phrase from a Paul tokima of a theology of beauty the icon is beautiful an expression of the divine beauty and what does this mean let us think of the Triad in Hellenic philosophy the good the true and the beautiful God is good he is the source of all goodness God is truth he is the source of all things true but God is also beautiful and he is the source of all beauty all glory how then does beauty differ from goodness and truth perhaps the immediate thing that strikes us about beauty is that it is instantly attractive goodness and truth may evoke our imagination but they don't instantly attract us quite in the way that beauty does and here we may think of a very important etymological connection the Greek word for beautiful is careless and that is linked to the verb can do which means I call I invoke this is the distinctive element of beauty it calls out to us it evokes in us and answering responds and so the icon as an expression of divine beauty makes manifest the attractiveness of God the holy icons through their spiritual beauty call out to us they Dwarfs to themselves they evoke in us joy and eagerness to come closer to the Living God but divine beauty as expressed by the Incarnate Christ is also a sacrificial beauty let us think of what is said in the tenth chapter of some John's Gospel where our Lord says I am The Good Shepherd and he continues the Good Shepherd lays down his life for the Sheep I am The Good Shepherd in Greek here the word for good is the same as the word for beautiful ago II may hope II mean ho Kalos we could translate the phrase not just as I am The Good Shepherd but I am the Shepherd the beautiful wah and so the beautiful Shepherd lays down his life for the Sheep beauty will save the world but beauty will save the world only if it is a chaotic beauty only if it involves sacrifice the laying down of one's life out of love for others so the beauty that the holy icons express the beauty of the Living God means the beauty yes of the Transfiguration but also of the cross the beauty of the resurrection but also the beauty of the Dead Christ laid in the tomb so thinking of the way in which Beauty saves the world and fills it with joy let us recall the words we use at Matins each Sunday through the cross joy will come to all the world beauty will save the world but it is the beauty of the Good Shepherd who laid down his life for us it is then this sacrificial transfiguring beauty of Christ crucified and Christ risen that we affirmed through the holy icons may God bless your conference Christ is risen

Channel: Seraphim William Davidson

Views: 24,554

Rating: 4.838006 out of 5

Keywords: googlevideo

Id: 67x3GiPDfvk

Length: 39min 24sec (2364 seconds)

Published: Wed May 09 2012