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This article will expound upon the biblical basis of iconography,
the meaning of icons, and will attempt to clear up some of the more
common misunderstandings surrounding icons.
The first instance of iconography can be found in the Old
Testament. In building a permanent temple to God (1 King 6:23-27; 2
Chr. 3:10) Solomon placed within and about the middle of the Holy of
Holies two images of cherubim, made of cypress and plated with gold,
their outstretched wings touching the walls of the temple on both
sides. And all around on the walls of the building he carved graven
images of cherubim and of palm trees and of flowers in bloom, both
within and without. And he carved cherubim on the walls, and also
made the veil of blue and purple and crimson and of fine linen, and
upon it wove cherubim. Afterwards God not only did not reprimand or
reprehend Solomon for doing this, but even expressed His divine
pleasure and approval both as to the builder’s design and as to the
temple embodying it (1 Kings 9:3) “I have herd your prayer and your
supplication, that you have made before Me; I have sanctified this
house, which you have built, to put My name there forever; and My
eyes and My heart shall be there perpetually.” It has been
sufficiently demonstrated that the tent, the veil, the ark, the
alter, and everything within the tent, were images and types, the
works of men’s hands, and that they were venerated by all Israel,
and that the carved cherubim were also made by God’s command. For
God said to Moses, “And see that you make them after the pattern for
them, which is being shown you on the mountain.” (Ex. 25:40).
Apostle Paul also approved in Heb. 9:1-5 the imitations of heavenly
things and of cherubim shading the mercy-seat.
Just like the Bible is a written Gospel, icons are a painted
Gospel. The icon is meant to be a “gospel proclamation, a doctrinal
teaching and a spiritual inspiration in colors and lines” (1) which
can truly express the deepest truths of the Christian vision of God,
man, and nature. “The traditional Orthodox icon is not a holy
picture. It is not a pictorial portrayal of some Christian saint or
event in a ‘photocopy’ way. It is, on the contrary, the expression
of the eternal and divine reality, significance, and purpose of the
given person or event depicted. In the gracious freedom of the
divine inspiration, the icon depicts its subject as at the same time
both human and yet ‘full of God,’ earthly and yet heavenly, physical
and yet spiritual, "bearing the cross" and yet full of grace, light,
peace and joy. In this way the icon expresses a deeper "realism"
than that which would be shown in the simple reproduction of the
physical externals of the historic person or happening. Thus, in
their own unique way the various types of Orthodox icons, through
their form and style and manner of depiction as well as through
their actual contents and use in the Church, are an inexhaustible
source of revelation of the Orthodox doctrine and faith.” (1)
Many people would say that we should not have icons because
people might end up worshiping them. This type of thinking occurs
when people don’t truly understand Orthodox Saints to begin with.
Orthodox Saints are a product of the Holy Trinity and all due
adoration, glory, and worship should always be channeled to the Holy
Trinity. When an Orthodox believer venerates a Saint via the Saint’s
icon he offers adoration, glory, and worship only to the Holy
Trinity. An icon of a Saint aids us and allows us to more fully
worship God in whom Saints have received favor through their many
acts of devotion such as martyrdom.
When praying in front of an icon and at all times for that
matter, the Orthodox faith discourages any play of the imagination
such as sensual or mental image making – for example: forming mental
pictures of Christ. The Orthodox icon does not aim at encouraging
visual or sensual imagination but, on the contrary, at its
restraint, by transferring attention from the exterior to the
interior.
Also, there are many that reject icons because they would rather
error on the “having less religious articles” side than on the
“having more religious articles” side. The consequence of such
actions and beliefs is the opening up of the Pandora’s box of Menu
Selectivity whereby one believes in only what one wishes to put on
his plate. Spiritual truth no longer remains absolute but becomes
relative. Then the same people who selected their menu items of
beliefs are surprised when others don’t select the very same items.
Why should they be surprised? This explains the resulting
proliferation of 3000+ Protestant denominations that have resulted
from this Menu Selectivity mentality.
To rebel against icons (namely: iconoclasm) is to deny veneration
to painted images of God incarnate and ultimately to the physical
world as well. For example, our physical bodies are temples of the
Holy Spirit. “Do you know that you are God's temple and that God's
Spirit dwells in you? ... If any one destroys God's temple [i.e.,
one’s body because one cannot destroy one’s soul] then God shall
destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and that temple is you" (1
Cor. 3: 16-17). Thus, the position of the iconoclasts begin with an
incomplete understanding of God becoming fully man and ends with a
religion so purified and reformed that it has become disincarnate, a
Manichaeism in which the flesh is not worth saving and the corporate
body of the Church is replaced by the individual’s immaterial
contemplation of a God who is no longer Jesus Christ, the Word who
became flesh, who was born of a Virgin, died on a cross, rose from
the tomb, and whose risen Body and Blood is the nourishment of the
faithful in the Eucharistic offering. Iconoclasm, when carried to
this extreme, results in Docetism where God merely appears to use a
body of flesh and then casts it away as so much dross.
(1) www.oca.org “Church Art” by the V. Rev. Thomas Hopko
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