Saint Silouan Orthodox Church: Icons

Icons

Mosaic icon of Christ Pantocrator from Hagia Sophia (The Church of Holy Wisdom) in Constantinople

ark
The Ark of the Covenant, covered by the Mercy Seat

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In the original Greek, the word for “image” is icon. Iconography began in the Old Testament. Images were permitted and at times commanded in the Scriptures. God forbade the Hebrews to create images of God, because no one had ever seen Him: “And the Lord spake to you out of the midst of the fire a voice of words, which he heard, and ye saw no likeness, only a voice” (Dt.4:12). “Take good heed to your souls, for ye saw no image in the day wherein the Lord spake to you in Horeb in the mountain, out of the midst of the fire” (Dt.4:15).

But while at the same time God forbade the Hebrews to create images of God, He spoke to Moses, giving him a command: “And thou shalt make a mercy seat, a lid of pure gold, the length of two cubits and a half, and the breadth of a cubit and a half. And thou shalt make two cherubim graven in gold, and thou shalt put them on both sides of the mercy seat. They shall be made one cherub on this side, and another cherub on the other side of the mercy seat, and thou shalt make the two cherubim on both sides. The cherubim shall stretch forth their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings; and their faces shall be toward the mercy seat. And thou shalt put into the Ark the Testimonies which I shall give thee. And I will make myself known to thee from thence, and I will speak to thee above the mercy seat between the two cherubim, which are upon the Ark of the Testimony, even in all things which I enjoin thee concerning the children of Israel” (Ex.25:17-22).

Since God Himself allowed us to see what the cherubic angels looked like, they could now be represented in form by us. But not only were the images of the two cherubim seen as icons, but so was the Tabernacle itself an icon or image of Heaven: the Holy of Holies, the Throne of God from which God spoke to man. God prohibited visual representations of Himself for one reason; He had never been seen.

In the fullness of time, God put on flesh; He made himself man. Saint John writes, “That which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched — this we proclaim concerning the Word of life” (1 John 1:1). Now, not only had we seen God in the flesh, but we had seen His face. Now an icon of God in the flesh could be made as a means of education and veneration. Later generations’ refusal to depict the material, Human face of God in images suggested that He had not really become man. One cannot separate the triune Godhead from the Man Jesus Christ.

I’ve heard that the Orthodox use pictures. Isn’t that against the Commandments?

Icons are honored as reminders of the glory and presence of God, and venerated as such. Worship belongs only to God: the Father, Jesus Christ the Word, and the Holy Spirit. Just as we recognize that Man is made in the image [icon] of Christ, and so we show honor to one another – in the same way we acknowledge that God is represented in all His creation. Even further, we believe that, since Christ has entered creation and has become material, He has made matter itself holy; so material things are fit to be used to worship and depict Him.

Rather than attempting a natural or artistic depiction, icons point to the realities of the Kingdom of God. They are often referred to as “picture windows to Heaven”. In other words, you will not only hear the Gospel in an Orthodox Church, you will see it. (And smell it, and touch and taste.) Icons are tools in our spiritual worship, and they bear witness to the sanctification of all creation and matter that occurred when Christ Jesus, the Son of God, took on human nature. Jesus in the Incarnation became the living icon of God in the flesh (John 10:30; 14:6-11).

Are images a violation of the Second Commandment?

It might be worth another look at the text: What God actually forbade was the making of graven images of anything in heaven or earth, for the purpose of worshiping them. Here’s His actual command:

You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. (Exodus 20:4,5).

If this passage prohibits pictures of the incarnate Christ, or of angels or our heroes in the Faith, then at the same time we’re tearing down all the Bible flannelgraphs in our Sunday School rooms, we really ought to destroy our photos of our families, snapshots of pets or the Grand Canyon, and the Statue of Liberty… Those are all images of things in the heaven or earth or water. In reality, of course, no one but the Muslims really believes that God meant to prohibit all images of anything in heaven or earth; it’s the worshiping of images that He forbids.

Then why do Orthodox Christians kiss icons? Isn’t that worshipping them?

To modern Americans, unaccustomed to expressing honor physically, it might look that way. But it’s worth noting that this kind of veneration isn’t unique to Orthodox Christianity: Many Orthodox Jews kiss the mezuzah on their doorpost as they pass it; they kiss their tallenin, too, as they put them on (Deuteronomy 6:8,9). Orthodox Jews kiss the Torah before reading it in the synagogue, as Jesus must have done. Orthodox Christians likewise kiss the book of the Gospels in reverence when we read it, since it is the premier verbal icon of Christ. (See this Jewish explanation of kissing things in devotion.)

In many cultures outside the Western world, there is nothing strange about bowing to greet someone; in Mediterranean and Slavic cultures it’s common to greet friends and honored guests with a hug and kisses on both cheeks, as Scripture repeatedly says, “Greet one another with a holy kiss” (Romans 16:16; 1 Corinthians 16:20; 2 Corinthians 13:12; 1 Thessalonians 5:26). It’s worth speculating as to whether that greeting with a kiss came to Christianity from the hearty Mediterranean cultures, or whether those cultures learned it from the Christians. Either way, culture and spirituality affect one another deeply. Perhaps if we as a Western culture were more in tune with the middle-eastern sensibilities of the New Testament writers, we would have less aversion to honoring one another with kisses and bowing; and then we would be much less put off by the ways in which Christians show honor to other living Christians who are no longer living in the body.

We ought to distinguish between worship, which is for God alone — and honor, which we owe to kings (1 Peter 2:7), presbyters (1 Tim 5:17), wives (1 Peter 3:7), and indeed to all people (1 Peter 2:17), since all are in the image [icon] of Christ. We bow to honor one another and to honor our heroes in the Faith who are depicted in icons. We greet all the saints (Hebrews 13:24) with a holy kiss …including the saints who are represented in the Bible and in icons. After all, there isn’t a great chasm fixed between the living and the dead. That gulf lies between the righteous and the wicked (Luke 16:26), not between us and the living Christians who are “absent from the body and present with the Lord.” Christ doesn’t have two Bodies, one on earth and one in heaven; His Body the Church is one, and includes both us who are in the body and the “great cloud of witnesses” (Heb 12:1).

But there weren’t any images in the Tabernacle or the Temple.

Weren’t there? Anyone who’s read much of the Old Testament will probably recognize the phrase “golden calf”. Aaron set up a golden calf and told Israel “This is your God who brought you out of Egypt!” In later generations, Israel’s default design for an idol was a bull or calf. This was an image that had strong resonance for them – this is what a god “looked like” to their religious sensibilities. (For comparison, see all the Assyrian and Babylonian images of “cherubim,” i.e. human-headed, winged bulls.) Prophets cried out against the worship of the golden calves; God pronounced judgments on those who set up these images for worship.

So what would you say if I told you these images were set up in the Temple – with God’s approval?

It may be startling (to say the least) to read in 1 Kings 7:25 that the brazen sea – the huge 15-foot diameter basin in the courts of the Temple – was made with graven images of twelve bulls prominently displayed. This should tell us, if nothing else, that God is not displeased by the presence of pictorial representations in holy places. Even when, as in this case, they are graven images identical to those the Israelites periodically worshipped.

Of course those weren’t the only graven images in the Temple. You’ll also find:

Two fifteen-foot-tall cherubim in the Holy of Holies (1 Kings 6:23-28)
All the Temple’s inside walls were covered with carved figures of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers. (1 Kings 6:29)
The doors of the sanctuary and of the inner sanctuary were carved gold-overlaid images of cherubim, palm trees, and flowers (1 Kings 6:32,34)
On the Temple carts, images of bulls and lions. (1 Kings 7:29,36)
and of course the two cherubs on top of the Ark itself!

God sees the difference between images in general, and images to which one gives worship. Hopefully we can too.

In fact, God has commissioned a number of icons. He commanded Moses to display an icon in Numbers 21:8,9 – God healed the Israelites from snakebite when they looked to the icon of the snake. It was not until a later generation, when the people had named this icon Nehushtan and worshipped it as a god, that it was necessary to destroy it (2 Kings 18:4). At another time, God specifically commanded Ezekiel to paint an icon of the city of Jerusalem and to treat the icon as a symbol of Jerusalem (Ezekiel 4:1ff).

We certainly can’t theorize that images are foreign to Biblical prayer and piety. Modern iconoclasm was not a feature of ancient Judaism, nor are images automatically idols. (Which is not to say that abuses never occur, as with the divinely-appointed icon that later became the idol Nehushtan.)

Jewish synagogue don’t display images like the ones in an Orthodox Church. Who changed?

The Jews did. Certainly modern synagogues don’t display images as an Orthodox Church building does. But New Testament-era Jews had no qualms about lavishly decorating their synagogues with images of biblical figures. When the second-century synagogue at Dura Europos in modern Syria was unearthed, the wall-paintings were found in excellent condition. Here are thumbnail photos of the back wall and the tabernacle area of the synagogue

Click to enlarge

Modern Jewish practice notwithstanding, it’s entirely appropriate to display representations of things heavenly or earthly, at home or in the sanctuary. It’s not the presence of images that’s wrong; what God rightly forbids is the worship of images. And the Orthodox Church, while using icons as tools in prayer, has always vigorously condemned idolatry in all forms. While it may look like we’re worshiping icons, trust us: We know the difference.