by Milica Yaksich

  Icons are prayers, written not painted. The iconographer's work is done with prayer and as prayer, then sanctified by Church blessing. Zernov writes, "...icons differ from religious paintings by the symbolic treatment of subjects, by their special technique of design and coloring, and above all by the change in their substance through the love and transforming prayer of those who made them and those who venerate them".

  No one can deny the power of the visual image. The media uses it to influence our thoughts and feelings and tastes through advertising, movies, television, and print. One cannot escape the constant barrage of images intended to affect what we like, what we buy, what we think, what we feel, and even what we believe. Is it any wonder that God would have man recognize and use the transfiguring power of art and worship? But let there be no confusion here: icons are not merely paintings or decorations. They are not just tableau vivant illustrations to edify and instruct the illiterate as Gregory the Great suggested when he said: "What Scripture is for the literate, the image is for the unlettered" - an idea still popular in the West. In truth there is nothing in Western Christian experience quite the same as the Eastern Orthodox icon. It is as fundamental and essential to our theology and dogma as scripture. St. Theodore the Studite wrote: "Just as everyone, no matter how perfect, is in need of the Gospel tablet, so (does one need) the painting expressed according to it".

  Sometimes described as a window opening onto the Divine realm, the imagery in the icon is deliberately symbolic and spiritual. Whereas in western painting the illusion of carnal realism emphasizes the living flesh and the material reality of this world, the icon reflects a different, more Divine reality to which the worshipper aspires. The spiritual nature of man is emphasized by altering the features: making the mouth smaller, the nose longer and thinner and the eyes larger; the eyes of the saints are peaceful and contended for they are in their Father's home and they invite us to join them there.

  Standing before the icon we cross ourselves, we bow, we kiss the icon (to express love and respect in the only way we can) and we pray. But let there be no mistake; we worship God, not the icon. The icon helps us just as a photo of a loved one bridges time and space to remind us of that individual and all we associate with them. Just as we may treasure and even embrace some object owned by them, it is understood that our affection is for the one the object represents and not the object itself.

  The image in the icon is symbolic but the icon is also blessed and transformed by prayer. It is venerated (deeply respected) as a sacred object and affords the worshipper a bridge to the unseen world and assists in forming a relationship with God. It is the visible testimony of God become man and gives man the hope of ascending to God, aspiring to spiritual perfection.

  The nature of the icon is controversial only in that it is difficult to explain or understand. St. Theodore the Studite states: "As there (in the Trinity) Christ differs from the Father in hypostasy, so here He differs from His own image in nature". At the same time St. John of Damascus writes: "The image of Christ is Christ, and the image of a saint is that saint. The power is not split asunder, the glory is not divided, but the glory becomes the attribute of him who is depicted." Leonid Ouspensky explains it thus: "In as much as the icon is an image, it cannot be consubstantial with the original; otherwise it would cease to be an image and would become the original, would be of one nature with it. The icon differs from the original precisely by the fact that it has another, different nature... In other words, although the two objects are essentially different, there exists between them a known connection, a certain participation of the one in the other... For the Orthodox outlook, the possibility of being at the same time identical and different is quite evident - hypostatically different, yet in nature identical (the Holy Trinity), and hypostatically identical, yet in nature different (the holy icons)."

  Recently someone asked me how the existence of the icon could be justified when man was expressly forbidden in the Old Testament to create graven images. I tried to explain that prior to the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ there was no image to describe God. It is still forbidden in the Russian Church to represent God the Father as an old man, rather the Holy Trinity is depicted according to the tradition set by Rublev's three Angels in the Hospitality of Abraham. We can ascribe an image to Christ and the saints because they are historical figures: their existence is documented and their physical features are described. Ouspensky makes it all clear: "...God the Word, the Second Hypostasis of the Holy Trinity, describable neither by word nor by image, assumes the nature of man, is born of the Virgin Mother of God, while remaining perfect God, becomes perfect Man; becomes visible, tangible and therefore describable. In this wise, the very fact of the existence of the icon is based on the Divine Incarnation. And the immutability of the Divine Incarnation is affirmed and demonstrated by the icon...".

  St. John of Damascus states: "I have seen the inhuman image of God and my soul is saved".

  On October 14, 1998 an exhibition of icons will open at holy Transfiguration Serbian Monastery in Milton. It is my hope that we can gather in Church on that day to celebrate the Protection of the Mother of God, after which there will be an opening reception for the exhibition.