Today, the Eastern Byzantine Churches remember the victory of the veneration of icons in the 7th Ecumenical Council in Nicea (787 AD). It was a victory for the Church against secular powers of the Byzantine emperors who had destroyed the icons in the Churches of the East in order to use their golden material for their own purposes. The spiritual battle for the veneration of icons lasted some 100 years. On the dogmatic front, Islam had influenced Eastern Christian thinkers that God, being beyond our conception, could never be pictured in a painting or a statue. This is partly why statues have disappeared from the Eastern Churches until today. The Council, with the help of a new empress, proclaimed that icons were never venerated for themselves, but as St. John of Damascus said, the veneration is for the persons they represent. With that proclamation, the Church regained its icons and started painting them again.
More than that the icons portray, to the believers, the beauty of God who became man in Christ. God who is hidden from our eyes was seen by the early Christians, walked with them, ate and drank with them and was in every respect like them except in sin.
God is beyond our imagination, yet he is one of us. The apophatic theology of the Eastern Church does not mean that God cannot be reached since he himself reached to us. But it says that God is beyond our mental comprehension. He is not only larger than the universe but he is also his maker. God is the Mystery beyond all mysteries. This is why the priest hides the holy communion, the Host, in the cup on the altar during Mass, Rev. Georges Farah said in his lecture this past Friday. This piece of bread we eat in the Eucharist is Christ who is God, even though it appears only as a piece of bread. In this sense, when we bow to the Eucharist, we are bowing to God who took on a flesh to be one of us.
But, according to Fr. Farah, beyond the mystery that the icon points us to, the icon returns us to ourselves, and helps us become free of our limitation as creatures in space and time. In looking at Christ in the bosom of his Mother and coming into ourselves, we experience the ineffable openness to everything and freedom of our soul beyond matter. We are then united in him, for he is "the way, and the truth, and the life" (John 14: 6)
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Sunday of the veneration of Icons in the Byzantine Church
Today, the Eastern Byzantine Churches remember the victory of the veneration of icons in the 7th Ecumenical Council in Nicea (787 AD). It was a victory for the Church against secular powers of the Byzantine emperors who had destroyed the icons in the Churches of the East in order to use their golden material for their own purposes. The spiritual battle for the veneration of icons lasted some 100 years. On the dogmatic front, Islam had influenced Eastern Christian thinkers that God, being beyond our conception, could never be pictured in a painting or a statue. This is partly why statues have disappeared from the Eastern Churches until today. The Council, with the help of a new empress, proclaimed that icons were never venerated for themselves, but as St. John of Damascus said, the veneration is for the persons they represent. With that proclamation, the Church regained its icons and started painting them again.
More than that the icons portray, to the believers, the beauty of God who became man in Christ. God who is hidden from our eyes was seen by the early Christians, walked with them, ate and drank with them and was in every respect like them except in sin.
God is beyond our imagination, yet he is one of us. The apophatic theology of the Eastern Church does not mean that God cannot be reached since he himself reached to us. But it says that God is beyond our mental comprehension. He is not only larger than the universe but he is also his maker. God is the Mystery beyond all mysteries. This is why the priest hides the holy communion, the Host, in the cup on the altar during Mass, Rev. Georges Farah said in his lecture this past Friday. This piece of bread we eat in the Eucharist is Christ who is God, even though it appears only as a piece of bread. In this sense, when we bow to the Eucharist, we are bowing to God who took on a flesh to be one of us.
But, according to Fr. Farah, beyond the mystery that the icon points us to, the icon returns us to ourselves, and helps us become free of our limitation as creatures in space and time. In looking at Christ in the bosom of his Mother and coming into ourselves, we experience the ineffable openness to everything and freedom of our soul beyond matter. We are then united in him, for he is "the way, and the truth, and the life" (John 14: 6)
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