The House Of God: Iconography (Discovering Orthodox Christianity)

hello and welcome to discovering Orthodox Christianity I'm Stacy Spanos your host for this series of programs designed to explain the basic teachings of Orthodox Christianity we're honored to be filming at the Holy Cross Chapel on the campus of Hellenic College Holy Cross Greek Orthodox school of theology in Brookline Massachusetts in today's program we'll discuss the house of God iconography our distinguished guests are dr. Helen C Evans she holds the position of Mary and Michael G harris curator for Byzantine art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City thanks for joining us and we also have here today dr. Anton Steve Rane he is the director of religious education for the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America and also author of the book the educating icon thanks for being here dr. frame let me begin with you what is an icon an icon is any image of the holy that you use for veneration we think of icons as wonderful images that are painted on wood but the word icon is much more inclusive than that it doesn't necessarily have to be wood what other types of mediums any medium a coin with an image of Christ to the Virgin miniature mosaics marble wood ivory many of the most beautiful ones from the Middle Ages are frame are ivory works they're needlework vestments for the priests that have images are an icon in motion there's nothing that couldn't be an icon if it has an image of the Holy associated with it and let me ask you dr. brain in the Orthodox faith who can be on an icon it's obviously not necessarily just Jesus well no it's well it starts with Jesus Jesus Christ of course but his mother the Virgin Mary the saints John the Baptist the great saints of the church any saint of the church but also then it gets into events so you can have an icon of a particular event in the life of any of them whether Christ the Virgin or a saint or a life a moment in the history of the church so Helen finding the cross it become becomes painted or depicted in an icon at some point so the church's not limited itself just the portraiture so it's got events and stories from antiquity but there are even icons of things happening around us now there's a and there's a very distinct style that we see in most Orthodox Christian churches dr. Evans but you're telling me earlier this is not necessarily how you'll see all icons there is no one style for icons the ones here in this church are all the whole beautiful implications of the middle Byzantine styles so the Virgin and Child in the apse are what you would see in churches around 1,000 but they're Cretan icons in the Greek tradition their modern icons they're Russian icons in a variety of styles Bulgarian ones to think that there is only one style is to not understand that these are a tradition that evolves it's it's not a stagnant tradition and then depending on when they were painted whether it's from as Helen said from middle Byzantine period that 10th 11th century earlier more recent we can see the style of even in the given school changing over time if you look at the image of the Christ blessing on the stand behind you that's an image that goes with the earliest icon that that survives the image of Christ at the monastery st. Catherine at Sinai in Egypt the pose is exactly the same the book is open the the images look totally different and yet they are the same image in essence though a bearded man with brown hair blessing and holding the word open for you to follow to him there are a lot of elements of the Orthodox faith that harken back to Judaism is our icons one of those things did the early did the Jews also have icons no I mean we know this is a purely Christian not quite I wouldn't say purely Christian but we know that one of the this was one of the debates about iconography in the middlee of the late antique period of the church the 7th ecumenical council Judaism we know we would think of as an an iconic tradition no portraiture of its figures and its events and that goes back to the Decalogue the Mosaic law I am like God and you will have no other gods before you you will not make any images of God if any kind and so Judaism doesn't develop that form of artistic representation it does it in other ways it decorates the temple and with all kinds of other elements very decorative we think of the Ark of the Covenant with cherubim on it the Temple of Solomon with images of animals and plants of paradise and things like that but no portraiture of figures and so the Christians and you can correct me on this one begin to take that into a new direction fairly early on though I where I would not disagree but say it's becoming more complex is that there's increasing attention being given by Jewish scholars to this site at dura europas in Syria that we know was destroyed in the third century and the synagogue there on the Torah wall has the life of Moses in detail and portraits of the prophets whether that is an anomaly is one once argued are more broadly based and which Jewish communities because Judaism like Christianity has many communities is now a very interesting debate in an exhibition I just did it was part of that debate the result is we're not so certain whether these are as separate as we would have argued in the late 1800s um but what certainly happens in the larger Christian world is that images are used to teach and then in the Orthodox world they become increasingly part of the discussion of how to venerate the holy and it's a huge debate because we have the Econo classic controversy is part of it it's not a simple everybody agrees explain the controversy when it comes to icons well in simple terms it's about a hundred and twenty years of debate it starts in the early 700 725 some people give it the debate that the Byzantine Emperor the church at that time begins to say this is idolatrous the behavior that people have towards icons the veneration the incense all these things that were worshipping idols and as a kind of a religious reform movement as I would think about it it's decided that we won't do this and we'll ban them and to keep the story simple a number of church conferences are held to decide this and ultimately the church bans any type of iconography any type of artwork and we get this practice called iconoclasm icons being destroyed clot you know the breaking of icons and initially there's resolved at the seventh ecumenical council 787 and the church comes around and says no this is part of the authentic Christian tradition to have iconography but also to use them as aids in our worship and our prayer because we're not worshipping to the icon itself or to the image of the icon what's going on and that was that was actually part of the debate and the intz the insight I think that was so genius for its time was that the the act of veneration the kissing of the icon the bowing in front of it the procession is being directed not at the image not the wood not the paint as John of Damascus would have said back then but to what it's being depicted so the idea that the and an idea from the how they venerated the Emperor at the time the honor given to the image passes through to the prototype the cotton who it is really to put that in our terms if your grandparents look at a picture of the grandchildren and they hug it and they even kiss it what's being kissed is it the grandchild or is it just the glass and the paper that the eye that the picture is printed on and the same exact argument was being made at the time of the seventh Council but the debate continued for about another forty fifty years and it really doesn't resolve itself until 8:15 and it's finally once and for all icons become part of the tradition no more challenges at a grand scale and dr. Evans I have also heard and correct me if I'm wrong that the icons were widely used in the early church especially as a means to educate people at a time when people were mostly illiterate well there are certainly early writers that talk about using the images as educational tools and I'm sure that that is true that's in all Christian communities again it's the transformation of them into a means for spiritual veneration a way to reach the holy by contemplating an image that is what makes it really to me an icon in the Orthodox world Oh as opposed to a picture in a Roman Catholic Church um and then the Protestant faiths tend to reject Saints in general explain to us what we're seeing here um this this bank of icons in front of the altar quite some wonderful iconostasis but why I find it particularly wonderful is it's an effort to revive one of the earliest stages of the screen between the congregation and the most sacred part of the church the apse with the altar so you have what are evocations of what would have originally been marble panels and the tall columns and the architrave across the top and in the beginning there may have been nothing where the images are now and then there may have been curtains and then they began to put icons in there and by the later centuries you have the great screen of images but here what you have is the consistent one's Christ the Virgin John the forerunner John the precursor the Baptist and then the st. are the in this case narrative that goes with the specific building this is the Church of the Holy Cross and it's the finding of the Holy Cross with constant and Helena all behind me so over there Church laid out like this every Orthodox Church those are the rules explain to me well first to the right well as for you start with Christ in the disposition then always next to him is John the Baptist John the forerunner what happens after that may will depend on the width of the space and what needs there are to fill that space the doors then because there's a door at the end of the innocence thence they will frequently have an angel Gabriel or Michael depending on which door it is or a deacon because there these doors are often called deacon doors so the deacon who's a saint st. Stephen the first martyr other deacons may be depicted there and then on the to the to our left you have the Virgin Mary and then the name of the church so it's very standard across all Orthodox churches will use this basic layout some churches then will go higher add rows and that was an even later development and you'll see Saints events in the life of Christ prophets depending on how high up they go especially in the Russian tradition they might go all the way to the to the ceiling and let me ask you about this part above these doors here in my particular church down in Florida there is an eye and here is the Last Supper thank you anything goes at that point it's up to the church except to say the tradition has been more dominant to use the Last Supper I would say to my knowledge it's because this is the table that it's the entry to the table and the table that the Eucharist is going to be celebrated on the table at which were gathered around with Christ to share in the Last Supper and so the icon over the door saying this is reminding us of this is why we're gathered to share in this meal this is not the most ornate Church I've been in but it's certainly very beautiful because it's got significance because it's here at the seminary or other churches more modest and is that okay it's certainly okay and there are churches of all types that from those who can afford the most elaborate is when Justinian built high yo Sofia and do those who have much less money who would be among the first Greeks coming to America and the first generations you bring into the church what's the core of your faith the need to separate the congregation from the clergy by a barrier and that that barrier should carry images that speak of what is important about the faith and the quality of the painter determines how great the icons are I mean if there are all Orthodox churches when they have icons up are they all in the Byzantine tradition no no and that points to me at least that points to both when they were built the aesthetic concerns the artistic concerns at that given moment because that's what I think people associated with Constantine look but you see churches especially I would say from you know 16 17 19th century for sure early 20th century where the art began begins to take on new forms it changes we would say it becomes more Western because of the influence of the movements in art around the world especially the Renaissance etc so this traditional very Byzantine style had developed over time but it was I would say the late 20 min 20th century rather to this day this became a revival same way we need to kind of get back to our sources and and from the historic examples of from a much earlier time and so there's this this Byzantine style was was essentially revived and has become much more dominant today than it would have been 70 or 80 years ago even in the Greece and Byzantine is an empire that lasts a thousand years its art evolved throughout that period so even when you're seeing a Byzantine style if you're talking about the icons of Crete there are much more animated tradition than the revival that is in this building which is deliberately evoking give or take of century or to the year 1000 so what other styles are there of icons because of course I grew up in the church so this is what I've come to identify it with but what we both might have different terms but they're the first icons which survive primarily at the monastery of st. Catherine is Sinai they're the icons that evolve and what we call the middle Byzantine period which is a period of great power for the imperial center at Constantinople I keep looking at this iconostasis and realizing that the Virgin and the narrow columns beside her look very much like an ivory icon of that period that we own at the Metropolitan Museum them then you have the latter years the late Byzantine period the post Byzantine period when there is an interest in much more detail the scene will tend to have secondary stories behind it and they are much more animated and then in the post Byzantine centuries by the late 19th century you have a icon painters who are reflecting the European tradition of a more volumetric figures and each of those in its own period is very much the style and if perhaps if you were in a Russian church you would be doing a revival of stroganoff icons or Novgorod icons there are more variations than we think because the themes are more limited we do images of the Virgin and certain poses because they carry great sanctity the image of the Virgin and Child behind me is the Virgin hood of G Trianon in the kind of status but on the stand that's the Virgin's pointing toward the child showing the way to salvation the picture the picture understand behind you there it comes from a monastery in Constantinople if you had traveled to Constantinople you would want a copy of the Virgin hood Egeria because you have seen it there it was a miracle-working icon and eventually it becomes the belief that the Evangelist Luke when he paints an image of the Virgin and Child when they are alive but that's image he paints but that's a much later tradition and yet one with a great home appeal and I desire to know what these people really look like might that have been the first icon it's unlikely that Luke actually painted it actually was frequently called the first icon is the one that's at the top of the apse here this veil this cloth there's a legend from antiquity that points that says that a King King Abner and Edison was ill and heard about this teacher Jesus and and he's a healer and wants to be healed by him and so he sends a servant to bring Jesus or bring something of Jesus to be healed and Jesus presses his face into a cloth and I'm shortening the story a bit presses his faiths into a cloth and his image of Christ is transferred to the cloth and then he takes it back the king is healed and this cloth is hung in the city for centuries and from the city is Harry to Constantinople right in the reign of Constantine the seventh and then it is in some way lost in the Fourth Crusade and when I went to borrow the earliest one that survives it's probably a icon from the Balkans perhaps Serbian that is in Lao in France that we can track the Catholic bishop that takes it and it is presumably an icon not made by human hands we have absolutely no idea what the image that was actually carried to Constantinople looks like this is so this is the tradition of what we think it looks like this looks very much like the one in France but whether that is the original one it it doesn't it's not around anymore so this question how do we know and are these accurate depictions of what the Theotokos looks like is this what Jesus looked like it's what we want them to evoke point we have no we have no deities there are no descriptions of either of them the Gospels don't say the tall brown-haired man with a beard went out and raised the dead we have found these to be in a way comforting to all Christians itself and yet when you look over the centuries you realize the face of Christ the hair the eyes they change you you go to Ravenna Italy in Christ is a young man clean-shaven looking like a Roman in noblemen of his top of the time and then by time you get to them you know much later he could be a pic pic acquires a beard the dark hair things like that in other cultures all of a sudden becomes more red hair fuller face different color eyes and dr. Evans you told me something the depiction of Christ may reflect the culture of the time but it's the essence of Christ very much I think the essence the 4th century sarcophagi which are some of the earliest images that we have enough the Christian world he's usually completely curly-haired it looks like he's 12 years old even when he's being crucified at 30 he looks like he's 12 we in the first centuries of the Christian world certainly knew him as a very historical figure we knew where he was born and where he lived by our time which is 2,000 plus years after his life and for several centuries before that he was much more an essence that we wanted to associate with our own cultures and that's when you begin to get Scandinavian blond Christ right Ethiopian Christ it's when his historical reality isn't as important to you as the essence of his meaning in these you have kind of a hybrid we don't know what he looks like but he certainly could have been and in the Holy Land looking like this and he would have looked like an inhabitant but then when you get into the the icons of saints I think that's what you see something different taking place then all of a sudden characteristics that the Saint must have had in life are now showing up in the icons you know John Chrysostom usually has a very short beard as I have Saint Basil the Great always has a very long pointy beard do we have historical documentation that's how they looked there I don't believe so but the fact that they're in their icons were being painted fairly quickly after their deaths says to me that the the painters the community wants to remember them and they pick up the those characteristics that were unique to that individual and then the tradition because it's artistically fairly state fairly stable retains that and then somebody writes that on a book if you want to paint an icon of this saint he has a long brown beard he has curly hair he holds this he's dressed like that so that the there is a normative tradition of how to depict st. so and so let me ask you Tony we've heard about icons that cry how does the Orthodox Church view those we leave it up and say it's one of these mysteries we don't understand how it happens why it happens we can find explanations all on both sides of the equation of why an icon is crying there's it's a long tradition of that in you know miracle working icons and but when we get into the crying icon some will say well it's because the st. ur freak with the Virgin is a frequent crier sorry to sound disrespectful and icons she's upset about the world and then the same person no she's happy about something else and so again I think we begin to ascribe some of our sensitivities about what we see going on around us and then this event that seems to have no explanation you know when people get investigating and looked behind them to see and look for the little trick that somebody may have played and you know those nuns and then we put we put our meanings and our concerns to the image and that's I think part of the beauty of the icon we bring ourselves to this image we want this relationship with God and we find it in the icon because we're visual people you know it's hard to abstract my relationship to the or Christ but when I can look at his image I can form a relation I can help them that relationship to Christ or the Virgin dr. Evans is their standard for creating an icon or is it basically up to the skill level of the artist there's not a standard but there are as Tony was talking about there were books that began to be written that said st. it goes back as far as Saint Peter but st. Peter has short curly hair st. Paul has a high forehead which is a symbol of being a learning scholar and so that if you're going to do these images you should be working within that tradition beyond that it is the skill of the painter oh can I create an icon yes you anybody can create an icon it's an image that you then use as a way to approaching the holy so it in a way to me an icon is more what you do with it than whether you hire Michelangelo to painted or me except you would get much better art with only the ones I could paint because I can't draw a straight line well let me ask you I mean if there we've all seen controversial forms of art over the years is there a point at which an icon or an artist can create something that could be considered sacrilegious sure sure very I would say controversial are really very jolting are some iconography contemporary iconographer who I can think of one in the head and my in my mind who kind of strips the image down to its barest of essentials and you would have the figure in color but if he's holding a book it would be etched in and you wouldn't see it until you get very very close and some but when you look at the execution of the faces my gosh this is very traditional but yet when you pull the image back or the color palettes four colors you go this is strikingly different and you're like wow and I might say wow do I want that in my church the way I want to pray in front of that maybe maybe not people are going to react to it differently just as we wrap to all for art forms dr. Evans they're contemporary artists who in fact have given up the image and use luminescence so kind of the essence of the image which isn't to a degree what the hezekiah movement thought that you are thinks that you can see when you contemplate in the right way that you see the light around Christ at Mount Tabor those artists would say that by looking at and contemplating these images which are only light you are drawn to trying to draw the figure draw the essence yourself I would imagine that most congregations coming into a church with Anik honest assets that perhaps had a red panel and a blue panel and a yellow panel would not know what they were looking at but it might be incredibly meaningful to others it's what you know and what you bring to it the works are done with great dedication some people use the phrase right an icon not paint an icon oh that one makes my teeth great all the time you look at the Christ child up in the apse that's as close to writing and iCloud as I think you can get yes but I also don't have that term it's also it's a linguistic problem the word make an icon econo gravis means to write and I can literally in Greek you be you in Greek to you that means write anything any kind of text but it's also the same root word to paint so ZOA gravis and modern Greek means just to do a portrait so it's this so it would literally bat which literally means life writing so so people have heard that and said well therefore I am writing an icon not painting an icon but if you ask the iconography this is know in painting I'm using paints and colors and there's things like that what I think the idea is getting at is kind of interesting is in the icons frequently says by the hand of as it's inscribed as if there was an author not a painter or the idea that when we begin to in look at the icon we can read it because we can see the story we can see details in the life of the saint or the event that we can now read and so this idea that the icon like much of art becomes as the anthropologists would say a text that we now can study we can reflect on we can learn from and contemplate and as we see in this church icons do not well we've talked about it do not have to be painted they can also be tile mosaics they can be anything we have in this church painted icons we have over in the reliquary container ones that are in many other media it is a relatively light development in the Orthodox world when icons come to mean painted panels and in fact it's only relatively late that panel paintings become the dominant form of icon if you're looking at the period that this installation refers to truly ivories are more popular than panel paintings on wood panel paintings on wood originally are a lot cheaper than mosaics so the image of the Virgin in the apse here is a mosaic and that was the most luxurious the most expensive form of image and many of the works that we think of as the greatest icons again around the Year 1000 are in fact mosaics which are then copied and in varying ways on panel paintings that remain alive today so it moves and then frescoes are cheaper than mosaics and panel paintings on wood are cheaper than painting on a finished fresco you always have to add how much money did you have to spend of course let me ask you Tony can we be considered icons sure if each one of us is created in the image and likeness of God the word image is equina and so you there's something in each one of us that contains the holy within us and can radiate that in our relationships to other people the world around us we ask that of camp kids at camp all the time and you know find the icon of find the icon and the best answer and this is for all the kids out there grab the kid next to you and lift them up because you're the person sitting next to you is create is an icon created in the image and likeness of God dr. Evans let me ask you about the significance of something that the Orthodox faith holds dear it's called Sunday of Orthodoxy tell me about that tradition well the sunday of Orthodoxy is the Sunday that celebrates the second Council of Nicaea the seventh and communica Council when icons are again authorized to the church and so that is very important it is the reason that you have an icon of status in this church it is a central moment in the history of the Orthodox faith and ultimately it comes have its own icon where you have those who were martyred for their defense of icons grouped around originally an image of the Virgin and Child and then eventually sometimes you get many more icons it's a very very definitive moment when you look at the history of what defines the Orthodox Church and it celebrated the first Sunday of Lent in the ER and all Orthodox churches because it commemorates when the iconoclastic controversy finally ends in 843 it's proclaimed on the first Sunday of Lent that year and so it becomes Co known as the Sunday of Orthodoxy the triumph of Orthodoxy being the ultimate restoration of icons and the iconic tradition within the church dr. Evans and dr. brain thank you very much thank you and to see more programs in this series discovering Orthodox Christianity please visit youtube.com / Greek Orthodox Church I'm Stacey Spanos thanks for joining us you you

Channel: GreekOrthodoxChurch

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Rating: 4.808219 out of 5

Keywords: Greek, Orthodox, Christian, America, Orthodox Christianity (Religion), Praise, Iconography

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Length: 34min 54sec (2094 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 03 2013