Windows on the Divine - video and transcript of presentation.
The transcript of the talk, together with the images used in the presentation is available below the video recording.
The images used in the presentation cannot be seen in the video recording itself. For this reason you may prefer to read the transcript, or else to view the images whilst listening to the video.
Father Christopher's introduction to the evening begins at around 7 mins 25 secs from the beginning of this video.
Windows on the Divine - praying with icons (transcript)
In recent decades icons have made something of a come-back in the West. Few can deny that. Some may be surprised that something they view as mediaeval art is still practiced. But others have discovered icons for themselves and are more aware of their depth. There is more to the icon than meets the eye.
Today I will begin by describing how we use icons in our worship in the Orthodox church. Then we are going to explore the place and role that icons have in our worship.
When we enter the church, we find ourselves surrounded by images - icons. You may feel you have walked into a painting or a mosaic. Here are some examples of church interiors rich in images.
There are icons on the walls, on the icon screen, icons on stands in the middle of the congregation. In front of some of them candles or oil lamps are burning.
During a service a priest or a deacon walks around with a burning censer, censing and bowing in front of the icons and holy relics that might be in the church. He also censes and bows in front of the faithful. The people bow back to him. They also make the sign of the cross and bow in front of icons and relics and venerate them by kissing or touching them. Some people may spend some time in deep prayer in front of individual icons, lighting candles in front of them.
Icons are sometimes carried outside the church in a procession, with burning candles, incense and singing.
Our homes are little churches. In our homes we have icon corners, where we pray.
We light candles, burn incense and venerate the icons. Icons are not for us optional decorative objects but an essential part of our worship whether in church or at home.
An icon is not an idol
At this point it is important to state categorically that an icon is not an idol. We interact with icons with deep reverence but that doesn’t mean we worship them as gods. Any honour or veneration is addressed not to the icon (image) but to its prototype. Every icon has got the name of the person represented written clearly on it. Icons that lack the name cannot be used. We do not worship icons, but our veneration of the image is out of love for the persons represented and ultimately for the one God, in whose image each of us is made.
We are all icons
The word “icon” means image. We are all made “in the image and likeness” of God, and even though through sin the likeness has fallen into unlikeness, we have not lost the image of God that is in us. Each one of us remains a bearer of the image of our Creator. Being an image of God is an inalienable part of being human. Wherever we go, we carry an icon of God in us.
It is in recognition of the divine image in all of us that the priest or deacon in church will burn incense and bow to the people – the living icons of God.
Saints – restoring the lost likeness
Saints whose icons we show honour to are those special people who through their lives and their words and their love allow us see a glimpse of God’s likeness, reveal something of God to us.
In the case of martyrs like St Justina – it is Christ-like sacrificial love, love to the death. For that reason, she is depicted holding a cross, a symbol of martyrdom.
Incarnation – Christ and His Mother
Central both in our churches and in our home icon corner are icons of Christ and the Mother of God with Christ- child.
Both these icons affirm Christ’s Incarnation. We see the son of God represented in human form and as a baby in the arms of His Mother. The divine Incarnation is the very basis for having icons at all. By taking on matter the Son of God, who was by nature invisible, took on our human nature and thus consented to be represented, revealed Himself through matter, and lived with us. Created matter became God-bearing. “The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (Jn 1.14)
In the well-known words of St Athanasius “God became man so man might become god”. It was God’s initiative to restore to us the divine likeness lost through sin, to and unite His divine nature to human nature firstly in Himself. It was God’s initiative, but it also required human cooperation.
As remarked on by Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh, at the creation of the world God and Creator said, “Let there be…” and the world was made by His Word. At the Annunciation, when Mary said to Gabriel “Let it be unto me according to your word” the opposite happened. The word of a creature brought the Creator into the world.
If God truly became man, He can be represented, therefore He must be represented.
What is prayer?
In his book “Orthodox Dogmatic Theology” Michael Pomazansky says: “Prayer is the manifestation of the Church’s life and the spiritual bond of its members with God in the Holy Trinity, and of all with each other. … It may be called the breathing of the Church, uniting the earthly members with the heavenly members.” (re-read, slowly)
Deesis – prayer
In a moment I am going to show you a group/ range of icons. The title of this icon or group of icons is Deesis which means Prayer. There are variants of this composition.
The central icon in the Deesis is of Christ.
Christ in radiant garments sits enthroned in power. The geometrical figures around Him are: a red diamond signifying royal authority, a blue circle or oval, often with images of cherubim in it representing eternity and the heavenly realm, and a red square, representing the earth, four corners of the earth. We see in this image Christ as the eternal ruler and judge, enthroned over heaven and the earth.
In the Deesis Christ is flanked by the Virgin Mary and St John the Baptist, then the Archangels and saints, all represented with their heads bowed towards Christ and their hands raised in a gesture of supplication.
We are an extension of this icon. This image of the praying church continues, this side of the icon, so to speak. This is in fact the case with all icons. We are included in them. What is represented in icons extends to us.
We pray with our bodies
I described the posture of the saints in the Deesis icon. As I have already mentioned prayer involves our whole being, including our bodies. We interact with icons using our bodies. While praying we bow, kiss the icons, raise our hands in prayer, kneel. From the earliest times raising hands to heaven has been an image of prayer.
Orans - prayer personified
Here is an image dating back to the second or third century, from the catacomb of Priscilla in Rome.
Likewise, from the earliest times of the Christian Church, bodies of holy people were recognised also as holy, and therefore a source of blessings, channelling grace.
This is how we came to have holy relics. In the catacomb church under persecution the Divine Liturgy was served on tombs of Christian martyrs which literally and poignantly served as altars for the eucharist.
What is Liturgy?
The word Liturgy (leitourgia) is translated as “common act” or “the work of the people”. It usually means the Divine Liturgy - our eucharistic service, but that term includes all the services and in fact our entire life.
The Liturgy is a common act and never a solo performance. We need a minimum of two people. “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Matt. 18;20)
During the pandemic lockdown we had three, three “earthly members”: Fr Richard – the priest, our youngest son Daniel – the server and me – the reader and choir. Enough to be able to serve the Divine Liturgy in a small chapel which we set up in my studio. We were also joined by an invisible “cloud of witnesses” - saints and angels who are invisibly present. Also, by another cloud of witnesses, our live stream viewers, praying with us…
To perform this common act, our church on earth comes together with the invisible Church which is made visible in icons. Icons are visible signs of the invisible presence of God, angels and saints.
When we are gathered together as the Church, the icon helps break down (or dissolve) all barriers. Above and beyond what live-streaming can do, the icon not only overcomes the barriers of geographical distance but joins the living with the departed; past with present and future; matter and spirit. It acts as a meeting place a place of encounter, not even a window on the divine, but a door (or a portal). Through it we enter. Through a window we gaze at a scene in the distance, with a door we participate in that which we behold.
Prince Volodymyr’s envoys sent in 987 from Kyiv to different places of worship in search of the True Faith, having participated in a service in Constantinople in Hagia Sophia filled with images reported: “We knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth. We only know that God dwells there among men”.
Metropolitan Kallistos Ware – Quote from “The Inner Kingdom”
I will now read a description of a visit to an Orthodox church in London in the 1950s rather lacking the splendor of 10th cent. Byzantium:
“As I entered St Philip’s […] at first I thought that it was entirely empty. Outside in the street there had been brilliant sunshine, but inside it was cool, cavernous and dark. As my eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, the first thing that caught my attention was an absence. There were no pews, no chairs in neat rows; in front of me stretched a wide and vacant expanse of polished floor.
Then I realised that the church was not altogether empty. Scattered in the nave and aisles there were a few worshippers, most of them elderly. Along the walls there were icons, with flickering lamps in front of them, and at the east end there were burning candles in front of the icon screen. Somewhere out of sight a choir was singing. After a while a deacon came out from the sanctuary and went round the church censing the icons and the people, and I noticed that his brocade vestment was old and slightly torn.
My initial impression of an absence was now replaced, with a sudden rush, by an overwhelming sense of presence. I felt that the church, so far from being empty, was full – full of countless unseen worshippers, surrounding me on every side. Intuitively I realised, that we, the visible congregation were part of a much larger whole, and as we prayed we were being taken up into an action far greater than ourselves, into an undivided, all-embracing celebration that united time and eternity, things below with things above. […]
Before the service had ended, I left the church; and as I emerged, I was struck […] that I had no idea how long I had been inside. It might have been only twenty minutes, it might have been two hours; I could not say. I had been existing on a level where clock-time was unimportant. […] I had been in another world, a world that was more real – I would almost say more solid – than that of twentieth century London, to which I now abruptly returned.”
That person was Metropolitan Kallistos Ware in his early twenties and that encounter proved life-changing for him.
Liturgical art
The icon is “liturgical art”. It is art, but not merely art. Its place is not in art galleries and collections, but it is the kind of art that comes alive in the worshipping community can only be understood within the context of worship.
Being liturgical, it is a “common act” and part of the Holy Tradition and reflects the teaching and experience not of individual artists but of the Church. Icons are made for prayer and Liturgy and what naturally follows is that they are born out of prayer and shared liturgical experience.
So iconography, painting icons is an act of prayer. The iconographer’s work is first to strive to acquire a purity of vision to see the inherent infinity of all things. That is an act of prayer. And then to give it to the beholder, channel it into the icon, translate it into the language of art. We take matter and use it in such a way that divine light radiates from it. Such icons will be recognised and understood by the people.
What you hear is what you see
Already in the fourth century Eusebius stresses the unity of the iconography and the Liturgy, saying that in church what we see and what we hear is one. (as quoted in “Theology of the Icon” L. Ouspensky).
The Liturgy of the church in words, music and liturgical action affirms the divine Incarnation, praises God’s work of salvation of the world and proclaims the Kingdom of God. The iconography, being an essential and active element of the Liturgy does so, using pictorial language. It affirms the divine Incarnation, glorifies God’s work of salvation and proclaims the Kingdom.
Icon of the Heavenly Liturgy
The entire Liturgy; the words, singing, light, incense, liturgical action and the imagery on the walls are all in a way one icon, the icon of the Kingdom of God and of the cosmic liturgy.
The Liturgy on earth is an image (icon) of the heavenly Liturgy. We are an image of the hosts of angels serving at the throne of God.
We “represent the Cherubim”. And we sing “Let us who mystically represent /literally “iconise” the Cherubim and sing the thrice-holy hymn to the life-giving Trinity lay aside all earthly cares … that we may receive the King of all who comes invisibly upborne by the angelic hosts. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia”. And later in the service, we sing the song of the angels “Holy, holy, holy Lord God of Sabaoth, heaven and earth are full of Thy glory. Hosanna in the highest!”
What is the Church?
“[…] a church is a very complicated reality, having a meaning rich in contents. It is a sacred place where the members of the Church, through the sacraments, commune in the divine life. Being the first fruits of the Kingdom to come, it is both a part of this Kingdom, as it already exists on the earth, and an anticipation of its coming in glory. It is an image of the divine Kingdom, towards which the Church leads the world” (L. Ouspensky “Theology of the Icon”)
In Church we find ourselves in the Kingdom of God but also journeying to that Kingdom. The church is our ship, the ark of salvation. The nave is called nave after the word “navis” meaning “ship”.
Our Destination - Ascension and second coming
On the East wall or in the vault near the East wall we may see the Icon of the Ascension from the mount of Olives.
Christ seated on a rainbow and surrounded with mandorla is carried to heaven by angels.
The Ascension is also the image of the second coming of Christ, the Parousia. “Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.” (Acts 1;11).
Past, present and future merge.
Sanctification of time
Sunday is both the first day of the week and the Eighth Day, which represents eternity.
The Divine Liturgy is outside time/space. But we also sanctify time and the passage of time. There are several cycles governing our worship: daily, weekly and annual cycle.
We have a yearly cycle of feasts. On a feast day an icon of the feast is placed in the middle of the church for veneration and as a focus for the faithful. Whenever we celebrate a feast, we are not merely keeping an anniversary of something that happened a long time ago. The reality of the feast is present with us in the eternal “here and now” and the icon brings the reality of the event before our eyes. The icon is not a reconstruction of what it might have looked like when it happened nor is it an illusion of it happening within the walls of the church. Before our eyes is the eternal reality of what we are celebrating in the present moment.
Many of the liturgical texts are in the present tense, often including the words such as: “today” and “now” and “behold”.
Nativity of Christ
“Today the Virgin gives birth to the transcendent one and the world offers a cave to the unapproachable one. Angels with shepherds glorify Him, the wise men journey with the star since for our sake the eternal God was born as a little child” (Kontakion of the Nativity).
When I am asked how to become an iconographer, I often reply “If you can, join a church choir”. There is such a wealth of imagery in the liturgical texts. And in the Liturgy what you hear and what you see is one.
Conclusion - The icon includes us
We have seen how icons act as windows or portals, representing the unseen reality and joining “things below with things above”. The words “join”, “unite”, “bring together” were repeated numerous times in this talk.
Here is my last image. This is the very well-known icon by Andrei Rublev called the Hospitality of Abraham which is interpreted by the Church Fathers as a revelation of the Holy Trinity.
The icon represents three angels seated around a table on which there is a cup. There is another shape of a cup outlined by the contours of the angels on the sides. In the middle of that cup we can see the third angel who is usually understood to represent the Son of God.
We are invited to join the company of the Holy Trinity, and to participate in the feast. There is a place for us at the table and an invitation to participate in the life and the all-embracing love of the Trinity.
The daily cycle
The daily cycle celebrates the rhythms of the day.
We are about to have a short service of vespers during which we will belss the icon of Saint Justina. We are going to sing:
Psalm 104 celebrating the creation.
The lamp-lighting psalm Ps 141 with the line “may the lifting up of my hands be an evening sacrifice”
Phos Hilaron – or Joyful Light/ Quiet light – Praising Jesus Christ who is the glory of the Father and in the words of this hymn is likened to the quiet, gentle light of the evening
Nunc Dimitis – the song of Symeon, who while holding the baby Jesus beheld the past present and future to be able to say “my eyes have seen Thy salvation which Thou hast prepared”
A hymn to St Justina and the blessing of the icon of St Justina.
What you see and what you hear is one.