The icon has been a constant feature in the history of the Christian Church, having been part of its worship since the earliest centuries. In this regard, Holy Tradition records that the first icons were painted during the lifetime of Christ the Saviour and in the Apostolic period. Thus, it bears witness to the existence of icons not made by human hands bearing the image of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to several icons painted by Saint Luke the Apostle and Evangelist, of which those depicting the Mother of God are known to us to this day.
The Church Father Eusebius of Caesarea records in his Church History: ‘And I too have seen with my own eyes [...] the likenesses of the Apostles Peter and Paul, and even the likeness of Christ, which have been preserved in colour’1 Since Eusebius recorded in the 4th century that these iconographic documents had been preserved up to his own time, it goes without saying that they were much older, and his testimony is all the more significant given that he personally held an antagonistic stance towards icons. In the same century, Saint Basil the Great wrote in a letter to Emperor Julian the Apostate: ‘This is why I honour and extol the features of the holy icons in a special way, because they were handed down to us by the Holy Apostles, because they were not prohibited, and because they are indeed displayed in all our churches’2). The Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council recall the apostolic origin of icons: “The tradition of icon-painting [...] has existed since the time of the Holy Apostles’ preaching of Christianity [...]. Iconography is by no means the invention of painters, but on the contrary, an established law and a tradition of the catholic Church’3. If the Tradition of our Church presents the veneration of holy icons as an integral part of the Church’s worship from the very earliest centuries, this at the same time provides the grounds for the veneration of the icon, as it is a liturgical and visual expression of the saving truth that God became man ‘for us men and for our salvation’. The liturgical text contained in the service for Orthodoxy Sunday, in turn, reinforces the fact that the veneration of icons is an apostolic tradition: ‘For in taking on the body, You also took on all its attributes. Therefore, when we behold the image of Your likeness, we kiss it with reverence, lifting our hearts towards Your love; and from it we receive the grace of healing, following the divine teachings of the Apostles’4”.
Thus, the principal dogmatic function of the icon is that it bears witness to the truth of the Incarnation of the Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, and to the possibility of man’s deification as a consequence of His Incarnation. The icon thus bears witness to the fundamental truth that the Son of God, the Word, became man: ‘The condemnation of our forefather Eve, the Mother of God, has been lifted, for you, O Pure One, have given birth to the Lord of all in an inexpressible manner; Whose likeness we now kiss upon the icons’5
The principal dogmatic function of the icon is that it bears witness to the truth of the Incarnation of the Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, and to the possibility of man’s deification as a consequence of His Incarnation.
The Quinisext Council (691–692) states in Canon 82 that the icon of Christ the Saviour is painted ‘to commemorate His incarnation, His saving passion and death, and the redemption of the world, which was accomplished through this’6).
Furthermore, the Synodicon of Orthodoxy reinforces the witness-bearing function of the Nativity of the Lord through the icon: “May the memory of those who bear witness to the coming and presence in the flesh of the Word of God—by word, by mouth, by heart, by mind, in writing and in icons—be eternal”7.
The Incarnation of the Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Word or Logos, had as its purpose, on the one hand, to deliver humanity from original sin following the Fall of Adam and Eve, as the church hymn composed by John the Monk also states: ‘Seeing Him who was made in His image and likeness, corrupted by the transgression of the commandment, He left the heavens, descended and dwelt in the womb of the Virgin without change, so that in him He might renew the corrupted Adam’8; but, on the other hand, it is aimed particularly at the deification of man. Saint Athanasius the Great emphasises in his writings that God became man in order to make man divine. The same point is emphasised in many hymns from the Divine Liturgy of the Nativity of the Lord: ‘Just as You, Christ, made Yourself like the mixture of earth from below, and by partaking of the fallen body, You imparted to it the divine nature, becoming man whilst remaining God’9
The body which the Son of God took from the Virgin, becoming a true man, is the visible sign of God’s boundless love for mankind: “From the heights of heaven, the King comes to us, from the pure Virgin, being God, but in the last days the Word made flesh, to call to Himself from corruption the man who was first created”9. Father Stăniloae explains this truth, attested to by the whole of patristic theology, saying: “The body which the divine Word takes from the Virgin, when He becomes man, is the sign and means of His extreme, loving descent to man. But He can take such a body only from a body which has itself become a sign and means of the utmost love for God. For one cannot fail to see the connection between the body He assumed and the body of His Mother. The Word willed to make His body a means of manifesting His extreme love as a human being towards God and His extreme love as God towards human beings. But this body was formed from the blood of the body imbued with His Mother’s feelings and remained connected to it […]. The height of His love for humankind met, in His Mother, with the height of human love for Him. His Mother was not only prepared, but also contributed to the fulfilment of the time in the encounter of the Son of God with humanity in His humanity taken from her and, through this, in the supreme love between Him and her”10). The Mother of God made herself the bearer of God’s merciful love for mankind: ‘O Virgin Mother of God, who gave birth to the Saviour, you have wiped away Eve’s first curse; for you have become the Mother of the Father’s goodwill, carrying in your arms God the Word made flesh. This mystery defies scrutiny; let us all glorify it with faith, speaking with you and saying: ‘O Uncorruptible Lord, glory to You!’” Thus, we see clearly how Christ is not a symbol of the Godhead, but true God in visible form, who makes it possible to depict His icon. The kontakion for Orthodoxy Sunday brilliantly highlights this teaching: ‘The Word of the Father, who is beyond comprehension, was made comprehensible through you, O Mother of God, by becoming incarnate; and the defiled image, restoring it to its original form, He mingled with divine splendour. Thus, bearing witness to salvation, we depict it in deed and in word’11’, thereby establishing, even liturgically, the role of the icon in Orthodoxy.
The pinnacle of His love for humankind met, in His Mother, with the pinnacle of human love for Him.
Christ the Saviour, “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation” (Colossians 1:15), opens up through His birth of the Virgin Mary the possibility that divine reality might be reflected in some way through the icon, as the liturgical text also affirms: “He who is unseen by His beginningless and divine nature was made visible as a man, O Virgin, from your most pure womb, for the sake of His most high mercy. In depicting His bodily likeness, we, all the faithful, worship Him with reverence and honour Him with true faith’12
The icon bears witness to the reality of the Saviour’s body. St John of Damascus writes on this subject: ‘He who exists in the form of God took the form of a servant (Philippians 2:6–7); therefore, depict Him in icons and set Him before us for contemplation, He who consented to be seen’13. With the Son of God’s assumption of human nature, it also became possible to depict the Word: ‘Exalting the image of Thy body, O Lord, we kiss it with love, revealing the great mystery of Thy economy. For You did not reveal Yourself to us, O Lover of mankind, in an illusory form, as the opponents of God, the disciples of Manent, claim; but in truth and in human nature, through which You lift us up to Your desire and love’14
To deny the icon is to deny the Incarnation of Christ the Saviour, to dispute the reality of the Son of God’s descent among men in order to raise them up to heaven: “By honouring and worshipping the icon, truly ascribing to it the glory due to the One whose image it bears, we honour it in accordance with the teachings of the spokesmen of God, and with faith we cry out to Christ: ‘Blessed be all the works of the Lord; bless the Lord’”15
The full revelation of God in the world was accomplished through the incarnation of the Son of God in the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ, for the spiritual renewal and salvation of humankind. The icon thus becomes the deepest expression of God’s presence in the world and the means by which man may be deified. The icon is not in itself a reality, but expresses the truest reality in the history of salvation: God, having become man, has become the beginning of man’s deification. In this sense, we too today, ‘observing the ancestral laws of the Church, paint the icons of Christ and His saints and kiss them with our mouths, our hearts and our will, crying out: ‘Bless all the works of the Lord, and bless the Lord’16”.
- 1
Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History, VII, 18, 3–4, in Writings. Part I, PSB series, vol. 13, trans. Rev. Prof. Dr Teodor Bodogae, IBMBOR Publishers, Bucharest, 1987, p. 288.
- 2
Saint Basil the Great, Epistle 360. Excerpt from a letter sent by Basil to Julian the Apostate, in his Writings. Part III, PSB series, vol. 12, translated by Rev. Prof. Dr Constantin Cornițescu and Rev. Prof. Dr Teodor Bodogae, published by IBMBOR, Bucharest, p. 618.
- 3
The Decrees of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, Sixth Session, as cited in Leonid Uspensky and Vladimir Lossky, Guidance through the World of Icons, Sophia Publishing, Bucharest, 2006, p. 32.
- 4
Stichera from the Stichera of Great Vespers, Orthodoxy Sunday, Triodion, 8th ed., IBMBOR Publishers, Bucharest, 1986, p. 179.
- 5
Hymn 9 of the Matins Canon, Sunday of Orthodoxy, Triodion, p. 186.
- 6
Archdeacon Ioan N. Floca, The Canons of the Orthodox Church: Notes and Commentaries, Sibiu, 1992, p. 151.
- 7
The Synodicon of Orthodoxy, presented and annotated by Dr Ioan I. Ică Jr., in Mitropolia Ardealului, 7–8/1985, p. 444.
- 8
Stichera for the Liturgy, 25 December, Menaion for December, published by IBMBOR, Bucharest, 1991, p. 383.
- 9a9b
Hymn III of the Matins Canon, December, the twenty-fifth day, the Menaion for December, p. 387.
- 10
Fr. Dumitru Stăniloae, The Immortal Image of God, Vol. II, Cristal Publishing, Bucharest, 1995, pp. 83–84.
- 11
Stichera for Lauds, 25th day of December, the Menaion for December, p. 394.
- 12
The Triodion, p. 183.
- 13
And now… Small Vespers, the Triodion, p. 179.
- 14
Saint John of Damascus, On the Veneration of Holy Icons. The Three Treatises Against the Iconoclasts, III, 8, trans. Fr. Dumitru Fecioru, IBMBOR, Bucharest, 1998, pp. 130–131.
- 15
See Laude, December, 25th, Minei for December, p. 187.
- 16
Hymn 8, Matins Service, Sunday of Orthodoxy, Triodion, p. 186.