What are Icons? Understanding Orthodox Iconography and Its Role in Christian Worship Pt.2

“Windows of God’s Kingdom:” An Apology and Exposition of Icons What Are Icons? Part.2

Old Controversies, Ancient Truths

The testimony of the early Fathers attests to their understanding of the vitality of iconography. This consensus for the use of icons in daily veneration and worship continued after the Christian practice was legalized in the Roman Empire (AD 313). Within a generation of the first Council of the Church in Nicaea (AD 325), one can look to a father no less than St. Basil the Great for a representative attitude toward icons: 

I venerate the image of Christ, as God incarnate; of the mistress of all, the Mother of God, as the mother of the Son of God; of the saints, as the friends of God… I set down in a record their brave feats and their sufferings, as ones who have been sanctified through them and as a stimulus to zealous imitation. And I do these things out of respect and veneration. For the honor given to the image passes to the archetype. (6) (Louth 35) 

Saint Basil the Great (Stryzhak) Icon - S453

This understanding was dramatically challenged a few centuries later. As Islamic armies were conquering much of the older Roman/Byzantine world, the Church was temporarily overtaken by those who rejected icons in the Iconoclastic Controversy of the 8th-9th centuries. This attack on icons was done in tandem with a rejection of the conciliar understanding of Christ’s nature and His continuing work in the world through physical, material means. In a sense, the Iconoclastic Controversy was arguably a symptom of a rejection or at least a questioning of the physical basis whereby Christ brings people into union with Himself. Regardless, the heresy counted emperors and bishops as supporters who purged icons from church and home. For over a century, they persecuted and even martyred the lovers of icons (iconodules), officially rejecting the ancient patristic consensus on iconography. 

One of the most persuasive supporters of faithfully maintaining the apostolic tradition of icons of any age lived during this tumultuous time. Serving in a region that had already been conquered by Islam, St. John of Damascus (c. 674-749) faithfully maintained the Orthodox witness for Christians there in Syria and across the world. His writings clearly stated the need for the continuing witness of icons and set the standard for their defense for subsequent generations. He recognized the timeless importance of icons in the life of the individual Christian with statements such as the following:

The icon is a song of triumph, and a revelation, and an enduring monument to the victory of the saints and the disgrace of the demons. (1) (Ware 42) 

Furthermore, St. John affirmed that worship is due alone to the Triune God but that faithful Jews and Christians always gave respect and even veneration for the people and things that were related to God. He argued that prohibitions in the Mosaic law against depicting God were both a protection against idolatry and an admission of the impossibility of depicting God the Father. With the Incarnation, however, he noted, everything changed. The Advent of Christ the Son, in human flesh, seen with human eyes and touched with human hands, made it not only possible but imperative to depict, remember, and worship Him in His Incarnate Body.

Throughout his three treatises entitled On the Divine Images, St. John started with the historical rationale for icons from Scripture itself. Connecting the witness of both the Old and New Testaments with Christ’s Incarnation, he demonstrated how iconography preserves and continues Christ’s work in the flesh through material representations through people and even objects such as crosses, bibles, and icons. 

Of old, God the incorporeal and formless was never depicted, but now that God has been seen in the flesh and has associated with human kind, I depict what I have seen of God. I do not venerate matter, I venerate the fashioner of matter, who became matter for my sake and accepted to dwell in matter and through matter worked my salvation, and I will not cease from reverencing matter, through which my salvation has worked. (7) (Louth 29)

He defended the act of venerating, the giving of prayer, honor, and even worship in front of an icon. St. John connected this apology to the apostolic tradition that such action is understood to be given to the person represented by the icon, not the icon’s structure itself. He further differentiated between the honor given to a saint or angel and to actual worship which is reserved for God Himself, namely, through Jesus Christ in His Incarnate body.

Veneration is a symbol of submission and honor. And we know different forms of this. The first is as a form of worship, which we offer to God, alone by nature worthy of veneration. Then there is the veneration offered, on account of God who is naturally venerated, to his friends and servants… or to the places of God…or to things sacred to him… Either, therefore, reject all veneration or accept all of these forms with its proper reason and manner. (8) (Louth 28) 

Through all of his writings, St. John pointed to the necessity of icons in connecting each generation of the faithful with Christ Incarnate. For him, it was not an option but an integral part of a disciple’s process of living now within the “great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1) and becoming a “living stone” (1 Peter 2:5) of Christ’s Body. He saw icons as a constant reminder of the need for each person, in his or her body, to become more like Christ now and forever. Opposed to his own day’s heresies, St. John pointed to the glory of the material as expressed in Christ’s own body and the need to preach that glory through word and image. 

For it is clear that when you see the bodiless become human for your sake, then you may accomplish the figure of a human form; when the invisible becomes visible in the flesh, then you may depict the likeness of something seen; when one who, by transcending his own nature, is bodiless, formless…by this reduction to quantity and magnitude puts on the characteristics of a body, then depict him on a board set up to view the One who has accepted to be seen. (9)  (Louth, 25) 

The role of icons was affirmed in the Seventh Ecumenical Council in AD 787, but the Iconoclastic Controversy would continue intermittently under various emperors until AD 843. Since then, all Orthodox churches have affirmed the necessity of icons in worship.

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(6) Ibid, 35

(7) Ibid, 29

(8) Ibid, 28

(9) Ibid, 25