Christian art has its origins quite early in the life of the Church. Symbols found in the catacombs testify to the use of art to convey theological statements as early as the beginnings of the second century.
The above symbols were used for identification between
Christians but also as a statement of their faith in Jesus
Christ as the Son of God and Saviour. The lamb is an
early symbol which was finally forbidden by the fifth
ecumenical council.
We do not know exactly how early Christ and the saints
began to be portrayed in icons, although there is a
tradition in the Orthodox Church of four icons of the
Virgin Mary holding Christ regarded to have been painted
by the hand of St. Luke himself. There is also the
Holy Mandelion which is an imprint of the face of Jesus on
cloth which was considered to have been miraculously
created by Jesus himself after the request of King Abgar
of Edessa who was ill and wanted to see Him.
Holy icons depicting Jesus, the Virgin, and other saints
seem to have proliferated by the beginning of the 8th
century. What is also apparent is that a wrong
approach to the use of icons in worship accompanied this
increase of the presence of holy images in the life of
Christians. This abuse of images by ignorant
Christians eventually sparked a reaction against holy
images, which we know as iconoclasm1, during the reign of
Emperor Leo III (717-741) which continued with vigor under
his successor, Constantine V (741-775) and into the ninth
century.
The Iconoclastic Controversy was not just about images,
however, but was closely associated with the
Christological controversies of previous
centuries.2 Eventually, the 7th Ecumencial
Council in 787 upheld the veneration of holy images as an
extension of the doctrine of the Incarnation.3
Since God assumed human form and lived among us we are
allowed to depict him on icons.
One of the main defenders of holy images was St. John of
Damascus who lived in the monastery of St. Savvas in
Palestine, under Moslem rule at the time, away from the
politics of Constantinople and safe from the imperial
persecutions of the iconophiles and defenders of
icons.
St. John of Damascus wrote several treatises in which he
answers the iconoclastic theologians who based their
opposition to images on: (a) the Old Testament
condemnation of idolatry, and (b) on the philosophical
presupposition that an image is one in essence with its
prototype – hence an image of God will be taken to
be God Himself – hence idolatrous. St. John of
Damascus addressed the weakness of the theology of the
iconoclasts with regard to the Incarnate Jesus. They
spoke of a divinity who absorbed humanity and united with
it making it devoid of its human characteristics, thus
approaching the heresy of Eutyches and the
monophysites. St. John emphasized along with
Necephorus of Constantinople and Theodore the Studite that
through the Incarnation God entered human history and
established a special relationship between the divine and
the human, between divinity and matter, between the
creator and the creation.
St John pointed out that: “In former times, God,
being without form or body, could in no way be
represented. But today, since God has appeared in
the flesh and lived among men, I can represent what is
visible in God. I do not worship matter, but I
worship the creator of matter who became matter for my
sake … and who, through matter accomplished my
salvation. Never will I cease to honor the matter
which brought about my salvation.”
St John makes a distinction between worship or adoration
(Latreia) which is offered only to God and veneration
(Proskynesis) or bowing down before something, that in the
Old Testament is offered even by the prophets to kings or
other human beings.
He also demonstrates that it is wrong to identify every
image with its prototype except only in the case of the
Son, Who is the image of the Father because they are of
the same essence to start with.
Hence, the icon is a theological statement of the
Incarnation of God and not God himself. His main
point was that we venerate icons, but give worship and
adoration to God alone.
Praying with the Icons
Every home has a corner for prayer where they keep their
icons. Our mind is destracted by the cares of life,
the duties and concerns of every day and the noise of the
world. We need to withdraw from everything into a
peaceful room and create a prayerful, serene atmosphere by
lighting a candle or an oil-lamp in front of the icons,
burning incence, cleaning of all thoughts we may begin to
pray with the Jesus Prayer until the soul comes to
stillness and the heart tastes the sweetness of the
presence of God. The mind eventually descends into the
heart and the prayer becomes “prayer of the
heart.”
