The Feast of the Holy Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council

In the Byzantine tradition, today is the commemoration of the Holy Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, the second held in the city of Nicaea, at which the Iconoclast heresy was condemned, and the sacred images restored to their rightful places for the veneration of the Christian faithful. At the seventh session of Second Nicaea, the definitive decree on the veneration of images was promulgated, on October 13, 787; the commemoration is fixed according to various traditions to a Sunday close to that date. Some years ago, I heard a sermon at a Byzantine liturgy on this day which recalled an important truth about Second Nicaea, namely, that it did not decree that sacred images are merely good and useful, but that they are necessary!

The rejection of the sacred images, particularly those of Christ, is ultimately a denial of the Incarnation. The very choice of location for the council expressed this idea; at the time it was called, the two previous ecumenical councils and the important synod ‘in Trullo’ had all been held in Constantinople. The Empress Irene, who as regent of her young son Constantine VI, arranged for a council to condemn iconoclasm, had tried to hold it in the imperial capital, but it was broken up by soldiers friendly to the iconoclast heresy. It was therefore moved to Nicaea, where the first ecumenical council had gathered 462 years earlier to condemn the Arian heresy that denied the true divinity of Christ. (To put this in chronological perspective, this is a greater distance in time than that between Trent and Vatican II.)

The refusal to depict Christ is a rejection of the fullness of His humanity, which is real, solid, and “circumscribed”, i.e., subject to limitations, and therefore capable of being expressed in an image. His humanity is the means of our redemption and salvation, as we confess in the Creed every Sunday, “For us men and for our salvation He came down from Heaven etc.” In the eighth and final session, the Council therefore also anathematized all who do not confess that “Christ our God is circumscribed according to His humanity.” The Greek word used here, “perigrapton – circumscribed”, is related to the verb “graphein – to write”, the term which is often used in Greek to refer to the painting of icons. None of this is accidental.

The famous icon of Christ the Pantocrator from the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mt Sinai, 6th century. The collection of icon at St. Catherine’s is particularly important, since it contains a large number of pieces that predate the iconoclast persecutions.

The liturgical texts proper to this commemoration make the point in a very interesting way. At Second Nicaea, the Patriarchs of Constantinople who had supported the iconoclast heresy were all condemned by name. However, they are not referred to in the liturgy, nor are the iconoclast emperors Leo the Isaurian, the real inventor and motivator of the heresy, and his two successors, Constantine V and Leo IV. (The traditional nickname of the second of these, “Copronymus”, means “dung-named” in Greek, a reference to what would now be called a diaper accident that occurred at his baptism; this was taken by those who honored the sacred images as a presage of his impiety. It occurs repeatedly in the Roman Martyrology, in reference to the many Saints killed or otherwise persecuted by him for the sake of the sacred images.)

It would be easy, but unjust, to see in this omission nothing more than an unwillingness to offend the offices of the Emperor and Patriarch. The greater truth taught by the Council, and by the Byzantine liturgy, is that the refusal of sacred images is a refusal of the Incarnation. To this point, therefore, the earlier Christological heretics are named repeatedly in the liturgy of the day, as in these texts from Vespers (bold texts are my emphases).

As true shepherds you bravely drove away those who are like Macedonius, Nestorius, Eutyches, Dioscorus, Apollinaris, Sabellius and Severus (of Antioch), exposed as dangerous wolves in sheepskins, far from the Savior’s flock, stripped of their fleeces, making them thrice-wretched; therefore we call you blessed.

Let us praise today the mystical trumpets of the Spirit, the God-bearing Fathers, who sang a harmonious melody of theology in the midst of the Church, to the one Trinity, unchanging Essence and Godhead; the overthrowers of Arius, the champions of the Orthodox, who intercede with the Lord that He may have mercy on our souls.

Holy Fathers, you have become sure guardians of the Apostolic traditions; for by teaching the orthodox doctrine of the consubstantiality of the Holy Trinity, you overthrew in council the blasphemy of Arius. With him you refuted Macedonius, the opponent of the Spirit, and condemned Nestorius, Eutyches and Dioscorus, Sabellius and Severus the Leaderless. We implore you: beg that we who have been delivered from their error may preserve our life spotless in the faith.

The following text, sung between the first and second parts of the Doxology at the Aposticha, is particularly noteworthy. One might easily assume it was a part of the commemoration of the Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council on the Sunday after the Ascension, rather than that of today, again underlining the intrinsic connection between iconoclasm and Arianism, and between veneration of the images and the Incarnation. (A friend of mine who is a great scholar of the Byzantine liturgy tells me that this hymn may very well have been composed for the commemoration of the Fathers of First Nicaea, and later added to this feast.)

Let us with faith celebrate today the yearly commemoration of the God-bearing Fathers, who were assembled from the whole world in the radiant city of Nicaea, as we reverence the gatherings of the orthodox; for they, their minds attuned to true religion, overthrew the godless teaching of Arius, and in council banished him from the Catholic Church; and in the symbol of faith, which they precisely and devoutly laid down, they taught all to confess clearly the Son of God as consubstantial and co-eternal, and existing before the ages. And so we too, following their divine teachings and firm in our belief, worship the Son and the all-holy Spirit with the Father, in one Godhead, a consubstantial Trinity.

A 19th-century icon of the Fathers of the First Seven Ecumenical Councils. The Byzantine liturgy contains several such commemorations: of the fathers at First Nicaea, at Ephesus, at Second Nicaea, at the Seven Councils collectively.

Although Iconoclasm was definitively condemned at Second Nicaea, it was revived in the early 9th century for almost thirty years under the emperors Leo V (813-20), Michael II (820-29) and Theophilus (829-42). Shortly after Theophilus’ son Michael III, (the bearer of another unfortunate nickname, “the Drunkard”), came to the throne as a child of two, his mother and regent Theodora arranged for the definitive restoration of the icons at a synod in Constantinople. (Theodora is venerated as a saint in the Byzantine Rite.)

St. Theodora, Empress of Byzantium, in a 19th-century Greek icon.

The liturgical expression of this final victory is the celebration of the first Sunday of Lent as the “Feast of Orthodoxy.” On that day, the Byzantine liturgy reads a text known as the “Synodikon of Orthodoxy”, a collection of the anathemas of the first seven ecumenical councils. The text has been much altered and added to over the years, but the first rubric in one of the oldest manuscripts describes it thus: “A yearly thanksgiving is due to God on account of that day when we recovered the Church of God, with the demonstration of the dogmas of true religion and the overthrowing of the blasphemies of wickedness.”

The final eight anathemas are dedicated to the iconoclasts, (and the iconoclast patriarchs are named explicitly.) The first one says,

On those who accept with their reason the incarnate economy of God the Word, but will not allow that this can be beheld through images, and therefore affect to receive our salvation in words, but deny it in reality: Anathema!

And the second:

On those who wickedly make play with the word ‘uncircumscribed’ and therefore refuse to depict in images Christ, our true God, who likewise shared our flesh and blood, and therefore show themselves to be fantasiasts: Anathema!

A 14th-Century Italo-Byzantine St Francis of Assisi, And a Relic of His Habit

Plus a Puzzling Piece of Bad Modern Art

In the final posting of this short series of art in the exhibition of works connected with St Francis of Assisi at the National Gallery in London, here is a 14th-century painting, a Western variant of the iconographic style. It shows the Saint with the sunken cheeks of an ascetic, and narrative scenes from his life.

It normally resides in Assisi. The painting is heavily stylised and has a beauty derived from the decorative effect of the strong color and gold, the abstract patterns in the borders, and the parabolic grace of the lines that describe form, especially in the robe of St Francis.

This iconographic stylization persisted in Italy in some regions for different reasons. One reason is that some parts of Italy remained under Byzantine rule until as late as the 11th century, and the painting style continued in those areas, passed down by tradition. Another is that contact with Byzantium on the part of Italians who were not under Byzantine rule was later renewed, and occurred regularly due to trade, and to the conquest of Byzantine lands out of Italy. This contact refreshed the iconic influence, but in ways that reflected development in the iconographic style that had occurred in Byzantium itself, especially in the 9-11th century, that were not necessarily reflected in all the Byzantine provinces. To my eye, this has look of the influence of one of the older, provincial Italo-Byzantine styles.

Finally, here is a relic - the actual habit of St Francis.

It is not unattractively presented, but as such it is not sacred art. It contributes to the faith of Catholics as a focus for prayer, which is derived more by the knowledge of what it is, rather than specifically what it looks like.

This makes art that is based on the fabric of the habit a pointless exercise, it seems to me, as it has neither artistic merit and very likely no influence over the prayer of the faithful over what it is. Nevertheless this is what we see in a contemporary piece on show, see below. I am not convinced, as the pseudo-spiritual language of the description that accompanied the piece, that this represents the ‘heights of artistic expression’.

Visual art is as good as it looks, and this in my opinion has no beauty, no authentic meaning other than what is arbitrarily imposed on it, and no authentic religious connection. It does serve to highlight, by contrast with other works in the show, the terrible impoverishment of contemporary art in comparison with tradition! It is however, perhaps more appropriately termed a crock than a sack!

I would reiterate the point I made earlier about the inclusion of such pieces in an exhibition at an art gallery, however. In criticising the art, I would add that I am nevertheless in favour of such pieces appearing in the exhibition. The National Gallery is not a church. Provided that the Christian art is properly represented, which it most certainly is in this wonderful exhibition. I feel that these modern, anti-traditional works of art, help us to focus on what a Christian ought to do and appreciate tradition even more.

The Mysteries of the Mandorla in the Our Lady of Guadalupe Icon

The story of the appearance of Our Lady of Guadalupe is remarkable in many ways. An important part of that story, that of the image that was given to St Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, is itself enigmatic. What follows is personal speculation - I am describing what strikes me as so mysterious when I look at this image.

As a revealed image, it is a rare Western example of a small category of sacred art called in Greek acheiropoieta - not made by human hands. In this example, we have some details clearly derived from Aztec culture and some from traditional Christian culture, including some features not normally associated with the Spanish Christian culture of the day. Something else that is striking about this image is how these aspects are combined so as to create something that has great power to convince one of the truth of what it conveys. This apparition caused millions to convert, and a large part of that was due to the persuasive influence of the visual vocabulary employed by the “artist” of this image. It spoke simultaneously to both the Aztecs and the occupying Spaniards, and continues to draw devotion today from Christians from all over the world.

The subject of this sacred image came up in a lively podcast in which I was in conversation with Christopher West (of the Cor Project and the Theology of the Body Institute). We discussed the broader subject of the place of contemporary popular culture in a Christian culture and whether or not it has a place for Christians as a tool for evangelization. In the course of this, we touched on subjects ranging from 1970s rock music (British, Irish and American) to Gregorian chant. (You can listen to the podcast here, or watch it on YouTube, here).

In the course of this exploration, we spoke of how the liturgy is the wellspring of Christian culture, and it is the culture of faith, connected to the liturgy, that is the strongest contributor to the universal human aspects of culture. In addition, this can be integrated discerningly with the contemporary culture so that it also reflects a particular time and place. If this integration is done well, the effect of the combination is to powerfully connect the universal truths to contemporary society; if, on the other hand, it is handled clumsily, it will have the opposite effect, and will lead people away from salvation.

As an example of such an integration that is successful, Christopher referred to the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and spoke beautifully of some of its elements that are particular to the culture, and of which I had not been fully aware before. So referring to this detail:

Our Lady’s hairstyle, parted in center, was in 16th-century Aztec culture the sign of a maiden, a virgin, but the ribbon and bow around her waist signified that she was pregnant. This is therefore a young woman who is portrayed simultaneously a virgin and pregnant. The quatrefoil roses articulated in sepia lines on the pale brown-ochre shawl signify royalty in the visual vocabulary of Aztec culture.

But this image spoke to the Aztecs of more than their own culture, because it has elements that come from traditional Christian culture as well. These are universal in that they speak to all Christians (one might make an argument in some cases for non-Christians too). It is these that speak to 16th-century Spaniards and to many Christians from all over the world since.

We can see, for example, the blue shawl, a common color for Mary’s outer robe. It is said to denote royalty. and Marian chapels often have their walls painted in this color. The exact shade of blue is unusual in that it is not lapis lazuli blue (French ultramarine), which a contemporary painter of the High Renaissance period might have used, but rather a turquoise blue often described as cerulean. I have no explanation for this difference. Also, I am curious to know more about the pigment that provides this color than Wikipedia can tell me. Cerulean blue pigment is only known since the late 18th century, when it was chemically created; it is not from a naturally occurring mineral. It might be that there is no great mystery here and that it is an effect created by a simple combination of other, naturally occurring green and blue pigments available at the time.

The eight-pointed stars represent her connection with the “eighth day” of Creation, her Son, Jesus Christ, who rose on the eighth day of the week. Traditionally in Eastern icons, there will be just three stars, symbolizing the perpetual virginity of the Theotokos - God-bearer - before, during and after her pregnancy. There are many more than three stars here. Perhaps it was deemed unnecessary by the Divine Artist to stay with three stars because her virginity is indicated in a different way, as already mentioned. There is also the moon, which is consistent with Scripture in that it shows Our Lady as the woman of the Apocalypse (12, 1), with the upturned crescent moon.

Another feature which interests me greatly is the nimbus of light around her. The account of the woman in the Book of the Apocalypse describes her as being “clothed in the sun.” The golden nimbus around her whole person might correspond to this. However, this is more complicated, there is something else going on here I believe that relates to the symbolism of the mandorla.

A mandorla is an iconographic symbol in the shape of a circle or an almond-shaped oval signifying heaven, divine glory, or light; mandorla is Italian for “almond.” It is an indication of the divine light of sanctity, but the mandorla of this type is generally reserved for Christ, at least in traditional iconography. I suggest that it is included here to indicate the presence of Christ within her womb. It is not there so much for the God-bearer, but for God! This is the Christian way of indicating that Our Lady is with child, the divine child, which complements the symbolism of Aztec culture. Remember that if this image had not spoken to the Spanish occupiers too, no one would have taken Juan Diego seriously.

Furthermore, take a close look at the gold envelope that surrounds her. This is not, as one might first suspect, a series of bright gold darts emanating from Our Lady. Rather it is a series of dark darts emanating from her on a gold background, the outer limits of which describe the mandorla shape, which is a smooth almond. In other words, this mandorla is getting darker the closer it is to her. Why should this be?

She really is, to use a familiar phrase, a riddle wrapped up in an enigma!

The answer is that this is how it is painted in traditional iconography. As I wrote in a previous article on the subject, “The mandorla surrounding Christ usually shows concentric bands of shading which get darker toward the center, rather than lighter. It is painted in this way so as to communicate to us, pictorially, the fact that we must pass through stages of increasing mystery in order to encounter the person of Jesus Christ. This encounter, which takes place in the Mass with the Eucharist at its heart, is one that transforms me supernaturally so that I can begin to grasp the glory of Christ more directly.”

You can see an iconographic mandorla here in an icon of the Dormition painted, by Theophan the Greek in 1392.

In the following icon, the sense of a mandorla getting darker as it moves towards the center is done in a different way.

As we can see above, the hidden “heart of darkness” is suggested visually by darts of darkness that come from a point obscured by the figure of Christ. This is similar, but not identical, to the device used by the artist in the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Notice also, incidentally, that while the Apostles are able to perceive the glorified Christ, they still do so dimly. They are partially and temporarily deified, but not fully, and so are partially blinded by the Light and knocked off their feet. To indicate this we see the rays that strike them as shafts of darkness, and the Apostles themselves will not receive halos until Pentecost, in contrast with the Prophets who are already in heaven, flanking Our Lord.

It is interesting to note that virtually every copy of the Our Lady of Guadalupe icon gets this detail wrong and inverts the direction of the lines. For example, here is one painted around 1700.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

The Feast of St Michael and All Angels

The traditional title of today’s feast is “The Dedication of St Michael the Archangel”, a term already found ca. 650 A.D. in the lectionary of Wurzburg, the oldest of the Roman Rite that survives, and in the ancient sacramentaries. The Martyrology erroneously refers this feast to the dedication of the famous shrine of St Michael on Mt Gargano in the Italian region of Puglia, following a medieval tradition attested by William Durandus at the end of the 13th century. In reality, the title comes from the dedication of a church built sometime before the mid-6th century on the via Salaria, about seven miles from the gates of Rome, and remained in use long after the basilica itself fell completely to ruin. The traditional Ambrosian liturgy, which borrowed the feast from Rome, has in a certain sense preserved the memory of its origin better than the Roman Rite itself; not only does it use the Roman name, but it also takes several of the Mass chants, as well as the Epistle and Gospel, from the common Mass for the dedication of a church.

The central panel of The Last Judgment, by Rogier van der Weyden, 1446-52, showing Christ above, and below, St Michael weighing the souls of the dead.

Despite the fact that the feast’s title refers specifically only to St Michael, September 29th is really the feast of all the Angels, as stated repeatedly in the texts of both the Office and Mass. The Introit is taken from Psalm 102, “Bless the Lord, all ye his angels: you that are mighty in strength, and execute his word, hearkening to the voice of his orders.”

This text is repeated in part in the Gradual.

The Communion is taken from the Old Latin version of the canticle Benedicite, “Bless the Lord, ye angels of the Lord: sing a hymn, and exalt him above all forever.” (Daniel 3, 58)

The collect of the Mass makes no reference to St Michael at all: “O God, who in wondrous order assign the duties of Angels and of men: mercifully grant that our life on earth be guarded by those who continually stand in Thy presence and minister to Thee in heaven.”

The Lauds hymn of the Office speaks in its first stanza of all the Angels, and in the following three of Ss Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, the only Archangels specifically named in the Bible. In the Greek version of the book of Tobias (12, 15), however, St Raphael refers to himself as “one of the seven holy Angels, who present the prayers of the saints, and who go in before the glory of the Holy One.” This gave rise to a Byzantine custom of depicting seven Archangels standing together around the Lord; many icons of this motif give names to the remaining four from various apocryphal sources. One is called Uriel, who is mentioned several times in the Book of Enoch which St Jude quotes in his epistle (verses 14-15). The names of the remaining three are not the same in all sources; in the 19th century icon seen below, they are given as Jegudiel, Selaphiel and Barachiel.

The Byzantine feast of all the Angels is kept on November 8th, and like the Roman feast, originated with the dedication of a church; this was a basilica in Constantinople known as the Michaelion, traditionally said to have been built by Constantine himself. The formal title of the feast is “The Synaxis of the Great Commanders (ἀρχιστρατήγων) Michael and Gabriel, and the rest of the Bodiless Powers.” Curiously, the liturgical texts of the feast make no reference to St Raphael, nor to any of the other Angels, nor to the origin of the celebration.

In the Middle Ages, many places imitated the Roman custom of celebrating a second feast of St Michael, commemorating the famous apparition which led to the building of the shrine on Mt Gargano. In northern Europe, however, we find instead the feast of “St Michael on Mount Tumba”, the Latin name of the celebrated Mont-St-Michel, as for example in the Use of Sarum, which kept it on October 16th. A votive Mass of all the Angels was already in common use in the early ninth century, as attested by Alcuin of York, and is present among the votive Masses in every medieval missal. However, only very rarely does one find a feast of St Gabriel or of the Guardian Angels in the pre-Tridentine period; a Mass of St Raphael is sometimes found among the votive Masses especially to be said for the sick, but I have seen no no more than a handful of references to an actual feast day for him in the medieval period.

In the year 1670, Pope Clement X added to the general Calendar of the Roman Rite a feast of the Guardian Angels, which had been granted to the Austrian Empire by Paul V at the beginning of the century. The feast was kept in some places on the first Sunday of September, but the common date, October 2, was chosen as the first free day after the feast of St Michael.

The Three Archangels and Tobias, by Francesco Botticini, 1470

Pope Benedict XV, who reigned from 1914 to 1922, took a particular interest in devotion to the Angels. At the end of 1917, he raised the feast of St Michael to the highest grade, double of the first class, along with the March 19 feast of St Joseph. In 1921, he added the feasts of Ss Gabriel and Raphael to the general Calendar, the former on the day before the Annunciation, the latter on October 24 for no readily apparent reason. The feast of St Michael’s Apparition was removed from the General Calendar in 1960; in the post-Conciliar liturgical reform, Ss Gabriel and Raphael have been added to September 29th, and their proper feasts suppressed, along with the traditional reference in the title to the church dedication.

The History of the Icon of the Transfiguration

This coming Saturday, August 6th, is the feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord. To mark this event, I would like to present a short history of the development of the traditional icon of the Transfiguration, based on a chapter devoted to the subject in Aidan Hart’s excellent book, Festal Icons. Hart’s account is a 40-pages long and has far more detail than I can supply here.  

The chapter follows the general pattern of his approach to describing 14 festal icons: he outlines the history of the feast itself, the history of the development of the icon, and then systematically discusses the main features of the icon as it is generally recognized today, introducing us to the theology associated with the feast, and how that theology is communicated through an artistic vocabulary.

Icon painted by Theophan the Greek, 15th century

So, as Hart describes it, the earliest accounts of the celebration of the feast itself date back to liturgical documents from the Church in Jerusalem in the early 6th century. It spread from there, initially south to Sinai and north to Syria, and then through the whole Church. It was not formally adopted in Rome until 1456, when Pope Callixtus III ordered that it be held annually on 6 August, in gratitude for the defeat of the Turks at Belgrade that year. However, there are records of the Transfiguration of the Lord being celebrated in Spain in the 9th century.

Commentaries on the Scripture, Old Testament and New, that relate the importance of the Transfiguration predate this, as one might expect. In the 3rd century, for example, Origen describes how Tradition has passed on to him the understanding that the mountain in the New Testament accounts is Mount Tabor.  

The first images date back to the fifth century; by the 6th, we see two prototypes emerging. The first is more symbolic in nature and appears as a mosaic in the apse of the church of St Apollinare in Classe, outside Ravenna. 

As Hart explains:

The Saint Apollinare mosaic shows the three disciples as sheep, and the transfigured Christ as a massive bejewelled cross with a barely distinguishable bust of Christ at its centre. The strength of this magnificent work is the multivalenced theology. The Transfiguration is shown as a foretaste of Christ’s second coming in glory, preceded by the appearance in heaven of ‘the sign of the Son of Man’ (Matt 24, 30) which Church Tradition has always understood to be the cross. Another theme is the transfiguration of the whole of creation through the Church’s priestly ministry, expressed by Bishop Apollinaris standing in a paradisical scene in an attitude of epiclesis and consecration. 

The other prototype is shown in the apse of the katholikon of St Catherine’s Monastery on Mt Sinai, again dating from the 6th century.

As we can see, this is a more literal, less symbolic representation. The Council of Trullo (which was not an Ecumenical Council) held in the late 7th century, banned symbolic representations of Christ and the Saints. 

Three theological themes of the Transfiguration are consistently emphasized visually:

Christ’s divinity, which is His nature; each Christian’s deification, which is granted by grace: and Trinitarian love which is experienced by the Church through her mutual love, sacraments and liturgical life.

Hart gives a fascinating account of, for example, the ways in which the different designs of the aureole - the layered envelope that surrounds the figure of Christ - are all ordered to communicate His divinity, and the connection of the Holy Spirit through the rays that emanate from it, complementing the voice of the Father that was heard.

So, for example, the rays are very often painted as triple rays, indicating the relationship of those touched by the rays with the Trinity in the Holy Spirit and through Christ. The eight-pointed star indicates Christ as the 8th day of creation. St Maximus the Confessor commented, Hart tells us, that the perfect number 6 denotes the perfection of the work of the creation of the cosmos, and the ideal of the perfected work of man in prayer, meditation, and good works. The number 7, the day of rest, indicates contemplation; and the number 8 deification.

The darkness is a cloud of unknowing, or rather, of ignorance, which indicates the mystery of God known to the degree that he reveals Himself to us through Christ, at its center, and through our encounter with Him in the Holy Spirit. 

Hart also points out that Christ was always both human and divine, as seen in the Transfiguration. The miracle, therefore, he says, might be considered not so much that we see his glory here, but rather that He hid it in the rest of His earthly mission.

Through the chapter, Hart by turn analyses the compositional structure, the portrayal of the Saviour, the portrayal of Light in relation to darkness, the portrayal of the prophets and disciples, the structure of the mountain, and the colors used. In each case, he describes how the different choices available to the iconographer are all connected to different theological messages. There is even a section on the influence of hesychasm and how the theology of Gregory Palamas (not always received enthusiastically in the West) has affected the images we see today.

To illustrate, referring back to the discussion of the aureole, he describes the three different varieties of shapes used within it: 

He then describes the variation in the number of rays, and why the internal color can be either blue or red. So this 16th-century example shown below, photographed from the book, has an arrowhead shape with three downward pointing corners, indicating the personal relationship of the disciples (and all Christians) with Christ, and multiple dark triangular rays indicating God’s generosity, in that this is open to all people.

One little aside, which is my observation in reaction to this: in the images of Our Lady of Guadalupe, we see similar dark triangular rays within the aureole, with the darkness widening as they get closer to the center, just as in the aureole around Christ above.

This has always suggested to me that the aureole is there not for Our Lady, but rather for Our Lord who is present in the womb of the pregnant Virgin. This then begs the questions: how many artists in early 16th century Mexico were aware of the conventions of painting aureoles in contemporary Byzantine icons? I suggest that the answer is just one: the Creator Himself!

A Litany of Saints Who Suffered for the Sake of Holy Images

(icon courtesy of Uncut Mountain Supply)

An earlier litany at NLM invoked saints who had been driven into exile for the Faith. The largest single subcategory of exiles were the Byzantine iconophiles, bitterly persecuted by the iconoclasts. As many have pointed out (including me in an earlier article at NLM), there have been three great periods of iconoclasm in the Church: the Byzantine period; the Protestant period; and the modernist period during and after Vatican II. In terms of the sheer quantity of religious art and architecture destroyed, the last of these three periods has been by far the worst[i]—especially because the greatest of all holy “images,” namely the liturgy itself, was also violently defaced, and continues to subsist in many places in that condition. We are therefore all the more justified in calling on the intercession of those who gave their health, their limbs, their very lives, for the defense of holy icons.

A Litany of Saints Who Suffered for the Sake of Holy Images

(for private use)

Lord, have mercy on us. Lord, have mercy on us.
Christ, have mercy on us. Christ, have mercy on us.
Lord, have mercy on us. Lord, have mercy on us.
Christ, hear us. Christ, hear us.
Christ, graciously hear us. Christ, graciously hear us.
God the Father, invisible and uncircumscribed, have mercy on us.
God the Son, Image of the Father, made flesh for man, have mercy on us.
God the Holy Ghost, sent under the form of a dove and tongues of flame, have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on us.
Holy Mary, pray for us.
Holy Mother of God, pray for us.
Holy Virgin of virgins, pray for us.

Ye forty-two holy monks of Ephesus, tortured under Constantine Copronymus, pray for us.
St Lazarus, monk, tortured under Theophilus as a painter of sacred images,
St Tharasius, bishop, recipient of a letter from Pope Adrian I in defense of holy images,
St Euthymius of Sardis, bishop, exiled by Michael and martyred under Theophilus,
St Theophanes, monk, imprisoned, then exiled by Leo the Armenian for venerating images,
St Nicephorus, bishop, exiled to the island of Prokonesis for reverencing holy images,
St Paul of Constantinople, burnt to death under Constantine Copronymus,
St Nicetas of Apollonia, bishop, driven into exile,
St John Damascene, apologist of icons, whose cut-off hand was restored by the Mother of God,
St Macarius, who under the Emperor Leo ended his life in exile,
St Nicetas of Medikion, abbot, who suffered much under Leo the Armenian,
St Plato, monk, who strove dauntlessly against the heretical breakers of holy images,
St George of Antioch, bishop, who died in exile for the veneration of holy images,
St Anthusa, virgin, beaten with scourges for the veneration of holy images and exiled,
St Emilian, bishop, who suffered at the hands of the Emperor Leo and died in exile,
SS Julian, Marcian, and eight others, slain with the sword for venerating an image of the Saviour,
St George Limniota, whose hands were cut off and whose head was set on fire,
SS Hypatius and Andrew, who suffered flaying, burning, and the cutting of your throats,
St Theophilus, cruelly scourged and driven into exile by Leo the Isaurian,
St Andrew of Crete, monk, scourged by Constantine Copronymus who cut off thy foot,
St Theodore of Studium, zealous fighter for the Catholic veneration of holy images,
St Gregory Decapolites, who suffered much for the veneration of holy images,
SS Theodore & Theophanes, brothers, beaten and sent into exile twice for the honor due to icons, pray for us.

Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, spare us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, graciously hear us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.

V. There is no idol in Jacob, neither is there a simulacrum in Israel.
R. The Lord his God is with him, and the sound of the King’s victory is in him. (Num 23:21)

V. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:
R. For in him were all things created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. (Col 1:15–16)

Let us pray. Almighty everlasting God, who dost not forbid us to carve or paint likenesses of Thy saints, in order that whenever we look at them with our bodily eyes we may call to mind their holy lives and resolve to follow in their footsteps: may it please Thee to bless us by images made in memory and honor of Thine only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and to grant that all who in their presence pay devout homage to Thine only-begotten Son may by His merits and primacy obtain Thy grace in this life and everlasting glory in the life to come, through Christ our Lord. Amen.
 

St Andrew of Crete

Sources in the Martyrology

At Ephesus, the passion of forty-two holy monks, who were cruelly tortured under Constantine Copronymus in defense of the veneration of holy images, and consummated their martyrdom. (Jan 12)

At Constantinople, St Lazarus, monk, who was tortured with dread torments by command of the Iconoclast Emperor Theophilus, because he painted sacred pictures. His hand was burnt with a hot iron, but he was healed by the power of God and repainted the holy pictures that had been destroyed. He ended his life in peace. (Feb 23)

At Constantinople, St Tharasius, Bishop, famous for learmng and piety. A letter of Pope Adrian I to him, defending holy images, is extant. (Feb 25)

At Sardis, St Euthymius, Bishop, who was sent into exile by the Iconoclast Emperor Michael because of his veneration of holy images. Later on during the reign of Theophilus he suffered martyrdom by being cruelly beaten with leather thongs. (Mar 11)

At Constantinople, St Theophanes, who from being a very rich man became a poor monk. He was kept in prison for two years by the impious Leo the Armenian, for his veneration of holy images, and then exiled into Thrace, where, weighed down with miseries, he gave up the ghost. He was renowned for many miracles. (Mar 12)

At Constantinople, the translation of St Nicephorus, Bishop of that city and Confessor. His body was brought to Constantinople from the island of Prokenesis, in the sea of Marmara, where he had died on June 5 in exile because of his reverence for holy images, and it was buried with honour by St Methodius, Bishop of Constantinople, in the church of the Holy Apostles in this the very day on which Nicephorus had been driven into exile. (Mar 13)

At Constantinople, St Paul, Martyr, who was burnt with fire under Constantine Copronymus for his defense of the veneration of holy Images. (Mar 17)

At Apollonia, St Nicetas, Bishop, who was driven into exile for the veneration of holy images, and there died. (Mar 20)

At Damascus, the festival of St John Damascene, Priest, Confessor and Doctor of the Church, famous for his learning and holiness. By his writings and preaching he powerfully defended the veneration of holy images against Leo the Isaurian. When his right hand had been cut off by the Saracen caliph because of the calumnies of the emperor, he appealed to the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose images he had defended: forthwith he recovered his right hand, whole and well. (Mar 27)

At Constantinople, St Macarius, Confessor, who under the Emperor Leo ended his life in exile for defending holy images. (Apr 1)

In the monastery of Medikion in Bithynia, St Nicetas, Abbot, who suffered much under Leo the Armenian, for the veneration of holy images, and finally, as a confessor, died in peace near Constantinople. (Apr 3)

At Constantinople, St Plato, monk, who strove with dauntless spirit for many years against the heretical breakers of holy images. (Apr 4)

At Antioch in Pisidia, St George, Bishop, who died in exile for the veneration of holy images. (Apr 19)

In the island of Prokonesis in the Sea of Marmara, St Nicephorus, Bishop of Constantinople; he was a most zealous fighter for the traditions of the fathers and fearlessly opposed Leo the Armenian, the iconoclast emperor, in regard to the veneration of sacred images. On this account he was exiled by him and, after a long martyrdom of fourteen years, departed to the Lord. (Jun 2)

At Constantinople, blessed Anthusa, Virgin, who was beaten with scourges under Constantine Copronymus for the veneration of holy images, and being sent into exile, fell asleep in the Lord. (Jul 27)

At Cyzicus, on the Hellespont, St Emilian, Bishop, who suffered much at the hands of the Emperor Leo on behalf of the veneration of holy images, and at last ended his life in exile. (Aug 8)

At Constantinople, the holy martyrs Julian, Marcian and eight others, who after many torments were slain with the sword by command of the impious Emperor Leo because of an image of the Saviour which they had set up on a brazen gate. (Aug 9)

St George Limniota, a monk, who reproved the wicked Emperor Leo for breaking the holy images and burning the relics of the saints. At the latter's command his hands were cut off and his head set on fire, and he passed as a martyr to the Lord. (Aug 24)

At Constantinople, the holy martyrs Hypatius (a bishop of Asia) and Andrew (a Priest), whose throats were cut, under Leo the Isaurian, after their beards had been smeared with pitch and burnt,  and their heads flayed because of their defence of the veneration of holy images. (Aug 29)

At Constantinople, St Theophilus, monk, who was most cruelly scourged by Leo the Isaurian for defending the veneration of holy images, and driven into exile where he passed to the Lord. (Oct 2)

At Constantinople, St Andrew of Crete, a monk, who was often scourged by Constantine Copronymus on account of his veneration for the holy images, and at length gave up the ghost  after one of his feet had been cut off. (Oct 20)

At Beyrouth in Syria, the commemoration of the Image of the Saviour, which when crucified by the Jews poured forth blood so plenteously that the churches of the East and West drew copiously from it. (Nov 9)

At Constantinople, St Theodore, Abbot of Studium, who fought zealously for the Catholic faith against the Iconoclasts and became famous in the Universal Church. (Nov 11)

At Constantinople, St Gregory Decapolites, who suffered much for the veneration of holy images. (Nov 20)

At Constantinople, the holy confessors Theodore and Theophanes, brothers, who were brought up from childhood in the monastery of St Sabbas. They strove zealously against Leo the Armenian in defense of the veneration of holy images, and by his command were beaten with sticks and sent into exile. After his death they again bravely resisted the Emperor Theophilus, who continued the same impiety, and were again scourged and driven into exile. There Theodore died in prison; but Theophanes, when peace was at length restored to the Church, became Bishop of Nicaea, and, famous for his glorious witness for the faith, rested in the Lord. (Dec 27)
 

St Theodore the Studite

NOTE [i] Fr. Jean-François Thomas, S.J., noted: “France is an immense reliquary, both because of the number of saints who rest there and are venerated there, and because of the names of places. All who fought against this over the centuries were not mistaken: the Protestants, the first iconoclasts in France, destroyed reliquaries and relics, and burned pilgrimage shrines; then the French Revolution completed the sacrilege by attacking relics and confiscating the precious metals and gems of the reliquaries for its war effort; not to mention—which is really the last straw!—that a portion of the clergy itself, in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, decided that all these superstitions no longer made sense and, having become effectively Protestant, removed reliquaries from churches or sold them to the highest bidder. A cultural heritage curator told me thirty years ago that, in the region for which he was then responsible, the post-Vatican II destructions had without doubt been more significant than those that took place during the French Revolution itself” (Are Canonizations Infallible? [Arouca Press, 2021], 7).

The Icon of Our Lady of Kazan

On the Julian Calendar, today is July 8th, the day on which the Russian Church commemorates the miraculous rediscovery of one of its most revered icons, that of Our Lady of Kazan. The original icon is traditionally said to have been brought sometime in the 13th century from Constantinople to the city of Kazan, which sits on the Volga river, roughly 500 miles directly to the east of Moscow. In 1438, the city was captured by the Tartars, at which point, the icon disappeared; it was recaptured by Tsar Ivan the Terrible in 1552, but half-destroyed by fire in 1579. The Muslim Tartar population gloated that the devastation of the city was a divine punishment against the conquering Christians. The Virgin Mary is then said to have appeared in a dream three times to a 10 year-old girl named Matrona, revealing to her the location where the icon had been hidden 140 years before to save it from the Tartars. On July 8, 1579, the girl and her mother recovered it from the ruins of a destroyed house; the miracles attributed to it in the following years played a significant role in gradually converting the local Muslims. A secondary feast is kept on October 22 (currently Nov. 4 on the Gregorian calendar), originally instituted to commemorate the preservation of Moscow from attack during a Polish invasion, which was attributed to the icon’s protection.

A copy of the icon of Our Lady of Kazan, ca. 1850 (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

A number of churches were built in honor of this revelation, including cathedrals at Moscow, St Petersburg and Yaroslavl, and numerous copies of the icon were made. (In the East, it is not unusual for there to be more than one church recognized as a cathedral in a given city; Moscow and St Petersburg both currently have eleven of them.) Very sadly, the original icon was stolen on June 29, 1904, from the church dedicated to the Mother of God where it had long been kept. (The church itself was later demolished by the communists.) The thieves, who had taken it for its golden and jeweled frame, were captured several years later, and claimed that the icon itself had been cut up and burnt. The icon had long been thought of as a kind of palladium of Russia, and many Russians ascribed the disasters which beset their nation in the following years, the 1905 Revolution, the embarrassing defeat at the hands of the much smaller nation of Japan in the war of 1904-05, the catastrophe of World War I, and the incalculable miseries inflicted by communism, to its desecration.

A 16th-century copy which was stolen from St Petersburg in 1917 was brought to Fátima, Portugal, in 1970, and remained there until 1993, when it was gifted to Pope St John Paul II, who kept it in his study. In 2004, as a gesture of magnanimity to the Russian Orthodox Church, the Pope returned it to the Orthodox Church, and it is now venerated at the cathedral of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in Kazan. In Church Slavonic and Russian, the adjectival form of “Kazan” is “Kazanskaya” in the feminine; this copy is often nicknamed “Vatikanskaya.”

The rebuilt cathedral of the Mother of God in Kazan; image from Wikimedia Commons by Dmitry Sagdeev, CC BY-SA 4.0

I have often used videos from the YouTube channel of the Sretensky Monastery in Moscow to illustrate articles about the Byzantine liturgy, since their choir has and deserves a reputation as one of the best in Russia. Their singing at the All-Night Vigil yesterday evening (Vespers, Orthros and Prime) and the Divine Liturgy this morning was particularly good, which is what inspired me to share them here. These liturgies were celebrated in skete, a kind of smaller and semi-eremitic monastery, often dependent in some way on a larger one; I am unsure of the precise location, but the church is very beautiful. Even a cursory description of these ceremonies would take longer to write than to listen to, but you can read the proper liturgical texts in English at this link: http://www.st-sergius.org/services/Emenaion/07-08.pdf

Can Non-Christian Rituals or Incantations Invisibly Destroy the Good of Holy Images?

A concerned reader wrote to me recently with a question about some icons she had bought online. She was happy with the images, but then heard that the company that supplied the high-quality reproductions was owned and staffed by Buddhists. Furthermore, she said, before the icons went out of the warehouse, non-Christian prayers and incantations, perhaps even Satanic in origin, were said over them. Are these icons still authentic? She asked me.

I thought about this, and in fact, I don’t see any reason to worry, even assuming that the worst of the rumors are true. Here’s why:

Icons are as good as they look. It is from the visible image that a sacred image derives its power. If you destroy the image, then it has no impact, it is just wood and ink or paint. Assuming the images are authentic, even if reproductions, then they have all the power of a holy image worthy of veneration. We can rely on them.

It seems to me that the error is in assuming too much of an icon. Some wrongly suppose that there is a presence associated with the icon in the way that Christ is present in the Blessed Sacrament. So the misplaced fear here is that the company selling them has somehow destroyed the invisible presence of the Saint and, even worse, have performed a sort of transubstantiation of the devil by which there is an internal evil presence that is distinct from the external appearance.

We should be reassured that these fears are misplaced, for there is no such invisible presence, good or bad. As with sacramentals, icons direct and focus our prayers through the engagement of our imaginations. Even blessed icons do not have the presence of the saint in them in that way. Furthermore, if the devil could be hidden away in an icon in this way, it would potentially invalidate every famous icon or piece of sacred art ever made. After all, we cannot guarantee that there is no one among all of the millions of people who have stood in front of them in church or procession (or museum) who has not uttered a curse or evil incantation before the painting or statue. It is quite possible that people with malign intent have done so on occasion. But there is nothing to worry about, for their words and intentions can have no power at all on the impact of an icon. Short of taking an ax to them so as to destroy the image we see, no one can destroy the power of the good images in front of them.

This is an error of attributing too much to an icon rather than too little. If taken too far, it could lead to iconoclasm, for if it is likely that the image is concealing an invisible threat to my spiritual well-being, it is better to destroy it rather than take the risk!

It is interesting that Protestant iconoclasts went straight for the faces of the saints, thereby inadvertently creating an image of the devil.

A blessing, incidentally, does not give a magic power to an icon, and is not even necessary for it to be a holy icon. However, it does obtain favors from God through the prayers of the Church offered for those who make use of them, and through the devotion they inspire.

If on the other hand, someone is venerating a grotesque or distorted image, say of the devil in such a way to falsely elevate his status, then that is idolatry and a serious problem, but that is not what we are describing here. One may also decide as a matter of principle that he would rather financially support a Christian icon supplier than a Buddhist one, but again, that is a separate consideration from the impact of the icons themselves on our faith.

It is better for the Church that wherever we get them from and whoever creates them, we venerate and promote the use of good and holy images. All sacred images are immensely powerful in propagating and reinforcing faith in God. To go back to the case of the company that inspired the original question, if the suppliers are indeed Buddhist or Hindu, the effect is far more likely to be one of directing the Buddhists to Christ, than of turning Christians to Buddhism. This is the hope, after all, in processing in public places!

I always try to remember that the battle is won and we are pinning our colors to the victor, Christ. The devil cannot harm us, except by fear and distraction that influences us to choose to reject God.

The Immaculate Conception, by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, 1767

There is nothing the serpent can do; Our Lady has trampled on him and he cannot escape.

The Facelessness of Tyranny, and the Tyranny of Facelessness

Christian Anthropology, Mask Mandates, and V is for Vendetta

In yesterday’s post, I described how in the oldest forms of traditional sacred art, which conform to the iconographic tradition, Christ and the Saints are always represented full-faced or in three-quarter profile, so that two eyes are visible. This is because looking at people face-to-face is the mark of loving interaction and characterizes Christian interpersonal relationships. The less of a full face we reveal to others, and the less receptive we are to those who wish to reveal themselves to us, the less loving we are.

A wise priest once described to me the difference between friendship and romantic love. Friendship, he said, can be likened to people in each other’s company enjoying and sharing together the experience of looking in wonder at the same sunset.

Romantic love incorporates friendship, of course, but in addition, lovers are fascinated by each other. This would be characterized by two people staring into each other’s eyes.

When we stand in front of an icon of Our Lord, for example, who looks us in the eye, it is inviting us to look back at Him and receive Him in a love that is greater than both friendship and romantic love. These lesser loves participate in the fullest expression of love, which is between the persons of the Trinity, a love into which we enter through Christ.

In sacred art, those who are not saints, for example, the devil are shown hiding an aspect of themselves from us through facelessness. They are painted in profile or with distorted or obscured facial features, and even trying to hide the faces of saints.

Scripture tells us that in heaven we will see God’s face. For example, in his famous passage on love (so often read at marriages), St Paul says, “At present, we are looking at a confused reflection in a mirror; then we shall see face to face; now I have only a glimpse of knowledge; then, I shall recognize God as he has recognized me.” (1 Cor. 13, 12-13)

This, then, is why wearing masks when we deal with people is profoundly damaging to our personal relationships and destroys loving interaction. To impose the use of masks, therefore, compromises human freedom and undermines the human spirit, the highest aspect of the soul, and our connection to the source of our capacity to love, God. When our spirit is undermined, we are cast adrift spiritually, and become malleable and manipulable by the forces of evil, for we are miserable and detached from the love that supports and binds us to God and others. This ultimately has additional on our mental and physical health, and introduces a greater risk of inappropriate authoritarian rule or even tyranny in society from “faceless” bureaucrats.

Very often, the spiritual dimension of man is not taken into account in the current debate about face-mask mandates and their impact on our health. Those who do not believe in a spiritual soul or understand or accept Christian anthropology are always likely to focus on the reduced risk of contracting physical illness by mask-wearing (putting aside for a moment the debate as to whether there really is any benefit) at the expense of the spiritual costs to the human person and to society as a whole.

It is no surprise therefore that the political left, generally more in harmony with the neo-Marxist worldview and anthropology, which is atheist and materialist in its premises, is more enthusiastic about masks than the political right in the current Covid situation. I am not suggesting that the goal of all left-leaning people is tyranny, or that they are unconcerned for the well-being of the people. Rather, that it is that their reduced view of man means that they cannot bring into their consideration the well-being of the whole person into public policy.

It is not as simple as saying that all mask-wearing causes more harm than good. But it is saying that in every human interaction the capacity to love has been severely curtailed by the use of masks. No centrally imposed policy that mandates mask-wearing can possibly anticipate what any pair of people ought to do, balancing bodily and spiritual needs, in a given interaction in accordance with the common good. So, mask mandates will inevitably fail to serve society.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

When Mystique Obscures Mystery - Some Truths About Holy Icons

Do we write or paint icons? Do you have to fast and pray before you create one? Is the saint present in the icon just as Christ is present in the Blessed Sacrament?

In the course of writing and talking about icons, I am often asked about the following: Is it true that an artist doesn’t paint icons, but rather that he ‘writes’ them, because he is portraying an aspect of the Word? Is it true that only Orthodox or religious are holy enough to paint them? Do we have to fast and pray before painting them? And finally, is the person depicted present in an icon in the way that Christ is present in the Blessed Sacrament?

St Isaias, 21st century, English

So what does the Church really believe about icons? In short, the answers are as follows:

First, call it painting or writing, (or carving if appropriate), whatever you like. My teacher who is as Orthodox as they come, and a respected authority in the Orthodox world, refers to this pedantic insistence on the word ‘write’ as ‘a bit precious.’ (I am told that this happens because the word for write and paint is the same in Greek.) As he used to pointed out, if you put a paint brush in paint and apply it to a surface. the English word that accurately describes that process is ‘painting’, regardless of what you are painting.

Second, it is not true that you have to be Orthodox or religious to paint holy icons. Visual art, and this includes sacred art, is as good as it looks. If it looks like an icon then it is an icon. This is true regardless of who painted it and of the medium used (although some media do lend themselves to the portrayal of the essential qualities of icons more than others). Regardless of the method that was used to paint it, there is no right way or wrong way, as long as one gets to the desired result. Having said that, praying regularly with icons, as Orthodox and religious do - in common with many lay people and Catholics - will help to develop in an artist a deeper innate sense of how art nourishes prayer, and will likely improve the quality of the art he paints.

A relief carved depiction of the Magi by Martin Earle, Roman Catholic: martinearle.com

Third, you don’t have to fast and pray before painting icons. Having said that, fasting and praying in accordance with Christian precepts are likely to enhance our capacity and inclination to respond to inspiration, should God choose to give it. This is true for all Catholics regardless of the activity they are engaged in, and so is recommended for all, not just for icon painters.

Fourth, in the Catholic belief, although the Saint is made present to us through the image in a profound way which engages our imaginations, and which is  analogous, in some ways, to the Real Presence, a Saint is not present in an icon in the same way that Christ is truly present in the Blessed Sacrament.

Some more background

The theology that stipulates that holy images are spiritually necessary to the Faith was established in the 7th Ecumenical Council, with a later clarification by the Synod of Constantinople. Between them, the the edicts of the two councils finally ended in AD 843 a period of destruction of images, the movment called Iconoclasm. This is celebrated today in the Eastern Church as the Feast of the Triumph of Orthodoxy.

The Church Father who expresses this is St Theodore the Studite, abbot of the Studion Monastery in Constantinople. What is ironic is that the error of the iconophiles (those who were in favor of the use of sacred images) of attributing to the icon a presence of the Saint is one of the things to which the iconoclasts objected so strongly that it provoked them to the opposite errors, seeking to eliminate the use of sacred images altogether. Theodore, like the iconoclasts, opposed this error, but he provided an alternative theology that justified the use of sacred images. (Note that we are talking about all sacred images here, regardless of style, and not to the style that we call iconographic today.)

Theodore, abbot of the Studios Monastery, Constantinople.

According to St Theodore:

1. The essence of the Saint is not present in the icon. It is just wood, gold, paint etc. The connection to the Saint is made in our minds, especially through the imagination, when we see the characteristic likeness portrayed. So if the icon is covered up, for example, by metal cladding, it has no sacramental value (unless the cladding has been beaten into a likeness, in which case it is the cladding that evokes the Saint for us). Theodore illustrates this with the point that once the icon becomes damaged so that the likeness is destroyed, it is just thrown away.

2. There are two qualities in particular that makes sacred art worthy of veneration, and therefore appropriate for use in prayer and worship. First, the art must look like what it depicts. In other words there is no place for an abstract portrayal of Passion of Christ. It must, to use Theodore’s phrase, capture the essential characteristics of the person or the scene being depicted. This does not necessarily require an accurate portrait, but it does mean that the things that distinguish a particular person must be present. So for example, the prophet Isaiah has a gray beard and long hair, and is shown with tongs and a hot coal which touched his lips at the beginning of his ministry (Isa. 6, 6-7). Second, the name of the person or the scene (e.g. the Nativity), must be present in a form that will be understood by those who see it; therefore, the vernacular is usually used. The name is present as another essential characteristic of the person.

St John the Baptist, English 21st century

3. Icons, when worthy of veneration, are like sacramentals. Their value is that they predispose us to grace, but they are not themselves channels of grace. This distinguishes them from sacraments. Their effect is profound and powerful nevertheless, and the use of images is not just permitted by the Church, it is required as part of the practice of Christian prayer and worship.

4. The Seventh Ecumenical Council and Theodore’s theology apply just as much to any form of art in which the characteristic likeness appears. Therefore, the view that what we now consider to be the iconographic style - typically that of Russian and Greek icons, in people’s minds - is a higher form than the other sacred art traditions of the Western church such as the Gothic and the Baroque, cannot be justified. English translations of Theodore’s writings do have him using the word “icon”, but in using this word, the translators are leaving untranslated a Greek word which means “image.” Theodore did not refer to specific styles or traditions. Accordingly, his theology applies as much to Gothic and Baroque art (the other two traditions cited by Pope Benedict XVI as authentically liturgical in his book The Spirit of the Liturgy) as it does to the iconographic style; it can also be applied to statues as much as to two-dimensional images.

St John the Baptist, by Guido Reni, Italian, 17th century. This would need a plaque on the frame with his name in order for this painting to be worthy of veneration.

Furthermore, it should be pointed out that there is no canonical or dogmatic statement or account by any Church Father that I know of, Eastern or Western, which says that the iconographic style, as we now refer to it, is inherently superior to any other. Like the discussion of Theodore, the debate in the early Church was about the validity of images in general.

Giotto, Italian, 14th century, gothic. Again we would need to see the name of the event - The Baptism in the Jordan - and ideally the names of the main figures in order for this to be worthy of veneration.

When we talk of icons today, we are usually referring to a style of art that, generally, speaking includes all Christian art, East and West, from about the 5th century AD up to about 1200AD. This includes, therefore, many Western variants in the styles of the Romanesque, Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Ottonian and Carolingian periods. With some interruption and variance, the iconographic style has remained the dominant form in the Eastern Churches, with variant styles such as those of the Coptic, Greek, Russian, and Melkites traditions.

St Matthew, The Lindisfarne Gospel, English, 8th century. Consistent with the iconographic prototype, in a style called insular art which combines Mediterranean, Anglo-Saxon and Celtic elements.

It may be a surprise for some to discover that the characterization of the visual elements of the iconographic tradition (as distinct from other forms of sacred art), and an accompanying theology as it is generally articulated today is a modern development, and did not exist until the 20th century. This doesn’t make it wrong, but it does make it new. We should be aware, however, that it was developed by anti-Roman Catholic, Russian Orthodox thinkers based in Paris such as Ouspensky and Lossky. While they did some great work in their assessment of their own tradition, they spoke in ignorance of other traditions. While their dismissal of other liturgical traditions may be fair from an Orthodox point of view (that is for the Orthodox to say), it has no basis in the teaching of the Catholic Church.

Eastern Rite Catholics legitimately and reasonably insist that the only form of sacred art that is appropriate for the Eastern Rite is the icon, and this might affect their choice of image for an icon corner in their homes. But it is just as legitimate for Roman Catholics look to their authentic liturgical traditions (which includes the iconographic as well as the Gothic and the Baroque), and consider them appropriate for the Roman Rite, and for use their own home.

To read an account of the theology of icons of Theodore the Studite, his works are still available. For an excellent summary of the whole debate regarding sacred art, which includes an account of the theology of images developed by both Theodore and St John of Damascus, I recommend God’s Human Face by Cardinal Cristophe Schoenborn, published by Ignatius Press.