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UCLA Historian Becomes Orthodox Christian | Unveiling Orthodox Worship Through Icons | TIO005 CWP075
What if our understanding of early Christian art has been entirely misunderstood? Join us as we uncover the profound significance of iconography in the Orthodox Church, challenging the common notion that religious imagery was a later corruption. Reflect on Fr John Reimann's journey from a Methodist background to discovering the richness of iconography through my academic experiences at UCLA. We'll shed light on how icons, even from the catacombs of Rome, reveal a deep, historical connection to our creation in God's image and our divine calling to holiness.
Explore how early Christian veneration practices are deeply rooted in Jewish traditions. Early Christians, many of them converts from Judaism, brought along the custom of venerating sacred texts, a practice that seamlessly transitioned into Christian liturgy. We dive into the placement and use of icons in early churches and the controversies they sparked, from improper practices to the veneration of tombs and requesting prayers from the departed. These traditions underscore a seamless continuity from Jewish roots to Christian worship, enriching our understanding of early Christian practices.
The journey of icon veneration in the Orthodox Church is a story of resilience and theological depth. From the brutal iconoclastic controversies, where defenders of iconography faced severe punishments, to the resolution that established icons as windows to the divine prototype, we paint a vivid picture of this historical struggle. Learn about the importance of depicting Christ and saints accurately and understand the proper etiquette for venerating icons. Finally, we reflect on the spiritual realities manifested through iconography, reminding us of our sanctification and connection to the divine during liturgy. Tune in for a profound exploration of how icons elevate our worship and remind us of our eternal calling to holiness.
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And looking especially at early Christian art history, challenged some of the things that I had been told. I was told that these icons are idols and that the early church did not have them. According to thy word, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation. So iconography in the Orthodox Church is incredibly important. They say so much about our theology, about our creation, our worth and what God's goal is. He's only created us in his image. We see it in the book of Genesis. It's very clear. But we're called to become like him. And in the original Greek, of course, in the Septuagint, the word is clear. It's icon, that we're an icon of God spiritually. Icon that we're an icon of God spiritually. And now, because of the incarnation, christ has also taken on our human natures, spiritually and physically. So that whole notion of us being the image of God is even more apparent, but also the fact that he wants us to be transformed, not just to be only human, but to become God-like and to be the holy icons of God. And that's why in our iconography we show the saints in a specific way. That's intended. If it's real, true Orthodox iconography, we have some that went through a Western captivity, which the church has shaken off and no longer in the new church is being built or we slavishly copying some of that style. But so it's a reminder of our calling to see ourselves and to actualize and to see the other the way God sees them, to see the essential good that's at the core of their being, but also to try to see the other the way God sees them, to see the essential good that's at the core of their being, but also to try to see them what they will be at the end of all eternity becoming holy as he is holy, becoming perfect as he is perfect, which is going to be an eternal process as we understand it. So icons are incredibly important.
Speaker 1:Now, I didn't grow up with icons. Mackey Methodist Community Church. When we went in there, their stained glass window was just beautiful, with kind of wavy designs in it. It was just. It was pretty, but there was no symbolism there. The only symbolism there was was this right in front of the church, at the central part, on a higher space which should be like the Holy of Holy place, because it's an elevated platform. They did have a communion table with a cross. That's there, and there was a pulpit on the left-hand side which you used to preach from, and there was a pulpit on the right-hand side which people sang specials from and read some of the scriptures from, but only the person preached out of the other one. That actually goes back in the early church to have both of those that's there.
Speaker 1:I don't know if they realized that or not, but behind that was this portrait of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Everybody's seen it. It's a very, very humanized Jesus. It's incredibly Aryan. It's also not even well done. It's a feminine Jesus. It's incredibly Aryan. It's also not even well done. It's a feminine Jesus.
Speaker 1:It's sad it became so popular amongst the West. I've even actually unfortunately, seen it in some Orthodox churches. They have copied that same thing because it became so important. And this is before the Orthodox Church came back to itself and realized what the true iconography that she should be using is. But anyway, so I didn't grow up seeing that there.
Speaker 1:That's just not my experience and that's why, when I went off to UCLA and saw some of the beautiful churches in Los Angeles, the Methodist church that was there had a lot more of the iconography and the image and the windows. At the Episcopal church they didn't have any icons per se. Instead they had some statues but the stained glass windows were kind of like the icons in a traditional style. What I discovered was at UCLA, in my studies of looking at Byzantine art history and looking especially at early Christian art history, challenged some of the things that I had been told. I was told that these icons are idols. They are false idols and that the early church did not have them and that this was a corruption from the time of Constantine on, just like liturgy and sacrament were a corruption added to the church. And, of course, not knowing any better, going off to UCLA, I found that was being challenged by what I was actually reading and discovering, by what I was actually reading and discovering.
Speaker 1:So when I got to UCLA, there, going to some of these churches that were more liturgical and having a little bit more religious imagery was a challenge to me somewhat, coming from the very plain Jane white background, of just maybe having only a cross in that one in the Methodist church. And when we built a new church in Mackey, idaho, there was a big debate whether even to put the cross there in the apse. I mean, the biggest thing that was fought over was the color of the carpet. Was it going to be gold or red. The church almost split over the color of the carpet, if you can imagine. This is where the evil one gets in. But there was almost equally a debate on whether to even put a cross up there. So this is how iconoclastic. My own home parish was a church at that time, but at UCLA they're studying the history of the Orthodox.
Speaker 1:I ended up starting taking these classes, art history classes and one I took from a professor and I started off with early Christian art history classes and one I took from a professor and I started off with early Christian art history. And that plus also a book I bought at the student store for like $5.99, which isa big, massive, thick picture book with all these pictures of all these paintings that were in the catacombs that are still there in Rome, challenged that whole notion that the early church didn't have these things and she was teaching in terms of what was understood academically about where this iconography came from. She was teaching more academically, from her perspective, where they were coming from. But she started off with first what was in the catacombs and really the scenes that she's showing. She taught in a way which I really appreciate. She said well, can anyone tell me what they think this is being depicted here? Well, you could look at it and see that this is very simplistic and stylistic. It's Moses in a box Excuse me, not Moses Noah in a box and he's letting out a dove. You know it's Noah and the ark, and so I was able to raise my hand and I could give an answer for it. And finally, after giving a certain answer, no one else was answering. And she says how do you know this? And she says well, I was raised in a church that we read the Bible a lot. I know the Bible stories, and there all these things are depicted, some a lot more frequently than others A lot of the depictions of Jonah, of going into the well, coming out of the well, a lot of imagery that's there, and some of the oldest depictions of Christ is shown there as the good shepherd, because Christ says I am the good shepherd, and so you see that image there, one of the oldest ones, and that goes back into the second century.
Speaker 1:We have some stuff early in the 100s, we have stuff in the 200s, and this is way before the time of Constantine. This is why the Christians are being terribly persecuted. And you also see not only the image of Christ being shown, and he's also shown sometimes with the same coloration that he has for his robes, that he will be wearing the red or the purple on the inside, which shows his divinity. He has the blue on the outside, which shows him putting on humanity in the incarnation, and that also you'll see. Also depictions of the Virgin and the child that are shown there, and one of the oldest ones that goes back in the 200s, and it's the Virgin actually nursing. And there's Barlam, the prophet, who's prophesying something concerning the incarnation. And it's amazing that this is there on the catacomb walls. And if you look at it, and she's wearing a veil though, so she's wearing a virgin's veil even though she's nursing a child. How is this possible? So she's being shown as being a virgin still and yet she's nursing her own child. And it's the same prototype we have here on the Iconostasis, going all the way back into the 200s, and then by the late 200s, we then see the prototypes of what we see of Christ, like what we have Christ in the dome. So before the time of Constantine, the design that's there is clearly shown in the catacombs. Way before Constantine built his first basilicas, and they began adorning those bigger spaces, then putting in mosaic in the higher area and stone on the lower area, and so we have a good understanding from the catacombs, from what survived in terms of what was there. It first confused me but then also kind of blew my mind that they found some of the surviving iconography. In Duris Europa, which is one of the oldest house churches, we found the ruins of.
Speaker 1:You understood the historical reality of the use of iconography. Going all that way back, can you talk to us about the veneration of icons? Right, the practice of icons coming to church? Can you talk to us about that? What do you tell catechumens? What do you tell inquirers? Sure, sure. So it seems very early on. There are those, and I know some people would look at some of this and say these are pagan practices. No, some of these, these are pagan practices. No, some of these things are Jewish practices. In that Jewish synagogue there was all this iconography. The whole walls were filled with stories from the Maccabees, so the Jews weren't afraid of it at that time.
Speaker 1:Now, how it's used for veneration, we do have some primary sources that talk about people venerating certain things that are considered to be an icon of Christ, especially one of those early on, would be the Gospel book. This is the normal practice that would transfer over from the Jewish practice. They would bring out in procession, the Torah. It would be venerated, be kissed. People would either kiss or touch it or kiss it itself. So there was a veneration that this was something sacred and holy because it contained the words of God, a record of the revelation. It wasn't God itself, but it contained that. So there was a proper veneration. This is a Jewish practice.
Speaker 1:The early Christians were Semitic. The early Christians came is a Jewish practice. The early Christians were Semitic. The early Christians came from a Jewish background, even though they're in a pagan culture. And the converts that are coming in, that are coming from a pagan, from Greek and Roman background, or the other ethnicities that are there, are following some of the same practices that these early Christians were doing and that involved venerating the gospel.
Speaker 1:We still do this when we have anytime, we have a gospel reading, especially on a Sunday morning. When people come Sunday morning for matins, they come. The resurrection gospel is read from the side of the altar, which is describing exactly what the angel proclaimed the good news of the resurrection of Christ at the side of the tomb and then it's brought out and the people come and venerate that. Why do they do that? Because that's what we do Pascha night Pascha night, which is the proclamation of the good news of Jesus' resurrection. And when people come into the church where they do, they all kiss that, because that was one of the most important icons the scripture itself. And of course we would then cover that book with depictions of either the crucifixion of Christ on the backside or, if it's a Sunday, we show the resurrection on the front side. But we don't have a lot of those that go way back because these were used so much, they were worn out and they were replaced.
Speaker 1:But we do know that there was this veneration that was done of the scriptures, veneration done of the cross. Okay, we know that. And then we also know that there were icons that were put in various places in the church. They were put usually on the posts that separated the chancel railing of the holy place from the holy place, this, the nave, being the sanctuary of the holy place, but this is the holy of holies in here, the sanctuary, the holy place, but this is the Holy of Holies in here. And so that chancel railing separated the space In the ruins of Duris Europa. In that house church there is a place that's a baptistry, which has a baptistry with a covering over it stone covering with four columns, but in the other room they have a chancel railing. Even that house church does separate the Holy of Holies from the rest of the room, so that that's where the clergy primarily gathered to do, but they came out in the midst of the people at various points in the service.
Speaker 1:And so we know from some of the primary sources that in those early churches after the time of Constantine and when they were allowed, the Christians were no longer being persecuted and could build their own church buildings, that they would have some icons that would be placed, hanging usually from the posts that were put on the chancel railing, and then there would be large pieces of wood that would go all the way across the posts, beams that would then allow for the Holy of Holy Place to have a curtain attached to it, that when the services weren't being done the curtain would be drawn. It's like why we close the royal doors if we're not doing the service. Some places do a curtain, which is more of a medieval monastic practice but the early church did have in those early basilicas. They did draw a curtain across that but they would put the icons from what we have from the primary sources on the pillars. We see some old churches that have survived. Very few have survived. That's the problem that they had painted some of the saints on the columns.
Speaker 1:And so you do hear the practice of some people going up at a certain point and venerating those. We know very clearly that there were things written on the tombs. There are various icons put on the tombs and also requests that were etched into those tombs for the person who had departed, that the person coming to venerate would come, would actually come and actually pay their respects but also venerating the things that were carved on that tomb and asking that person to pray for them. So we know this goes back into the Jewish tradition. The prayers for the dead go back into the Jewish tradition, especially in the book of Maccabees 1 Maccabees. But even this whole notion of asking for people who have departed to pray for you, this goes back to the Jewish tradition. So the early Christians are the fulfillment of the law and the prophecy that's what Christ is fulfilling and continue to do that practice, and so the notion was these icons were then placed on the columns.
Speaker 1:But then there was a real big battle onto whether we should have the icons in the church, because there were some, unfortunately and we can read those in the primary sources too there were some bad practices that were being done, stupid practices, and I'll give you just a couple examples that I could find the primary sources and read to you from that have survived to us. We've lost a lot, of course, but one of them was that some priest would go and take a holy, wonder-working icon and scrape some of the paint off of the icon into the communion and give it to the people. It's like why would you do that? But out of ignorance, this was being done some places, and that's people who opposed the icons drew these examples and said this is why they have to stop being used. Another one that was done a priest would come out on the icon, stand and bring the communion and put the communion on the hand of Christ out there. The people would come and lick it off. This is not how you receive communion.
Speaker 1:People were doing innovative things which they weren't given the permission by their bishop to do. We Orthodox are trying to follow the faith once and for all delivered unto the saints, and the guardians of that are our bishops, who are the successors of the apostles. And there are things we can do and there are things we cannot do. And so some of these were distortions. And that's when some people unfortunately imperial leaders in the Orthodox Church and, I believe, for economic and political reasons, not just religious reasons had their war and attack upon the icons and ended up saying borrowing quotes from a section of the Old Testament from the Jews, and also a lot of the arguments from the Muslims saying that this is idolatry and we shouldn't be having those used in the church. And so there was a real battle going on in the church. There were many martyrs, people who were iconographers that had their hands dipped in molten lead so they could no longer paint anything more. Some of the saints that we're going to have depicted here on the ceilings of our church here are going to be some of those who were defending the use of the icons and some on the walls. And so what happened?
Speaker 1:Finally, the church came to an understanding, especially by looking at the interpretation of the scriptures from the Holy Fathers, and one of those understandings very clearly was that the veneration that we give to the icon, regardless of what it's made of, is passed along to the prototype, and so there is a proper veneration. They are never to be worshipped, and the church became very, very clear in the language we use. We worship only the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Trinity. We venerate the gospel as an icon of Christ. We venerate the cross as a way he's taken dead wood and transformed it into something that's miraculously changing life, because that's what we're supposed to be changed by Christ himself and become sanctified. We venerate the icons, we can venerate the icons because when we come it's like greeting Christ and the saints.
Speaker 1:We believe we're surrounded by a whole cloud of witnesses. That's why we're looking forward to completing the iconography, because we have some of the cloud of witnesses here on the ceiling, but we want them on the walls to remind that, when we gather two or three or gather together, that Christ is in our midst, but we are connected to the ongoing worship before the throne of God in heaven, of which the saints are ever making intercession for us, and we join in with them in our time and space for a short period of time, of what's already going on. And so these help manifest and make present to us that reality of that heavenly worship and that connection by the power of the Holy Spirit which death cannot separate, that we are connected in Christ and we have. St Paul, thank God, writes a lot of good in his epistles, trying to comfort the Christians who've lost loved ones but say that they're still alive in Christ. If we don't believe this, then we are among people most miserable. And so, after that big battle and the church realized that, yes, we can have icons in the church, but they must be treated properly, none of the abuses that happened before. We must refer to them properly and they must be depicted properly.
Speaker 1:And it was made very clear if you're going to show the incarnated Christ, the Word of God become flesh with created spirit, created matter, that you have to show him as completely human. And thus, in his historical context, he's going to be shown as a man. He's going to be shown as a Jew, because he came into time and space as a Jew, he has to be shown. He can't be shown as an Aryan, he can't be shown as a woman. Christus Rex. He has to be shown as a man. He has to be shown as being Semitic and shown Jewish. He has to be shown as being Semitic and shown Jewish, and that he, but he also has to be shown as divine. And that's why there is a way of stylization that is done to show Christ with larger eyes, to show the wisdom, a small mouth that's closed, dispassionate, not full of emotion, and that we have Christ with his fingers being elongated. And so there's this abstraction that's done to show this hierotic element that's going on here the importance of Christ spiritually. This was borrowed from some of the artistic forms that were being used at the time, especially the second or third century.
Speaker 1:Then the Christians were told that there is a proper way, that when you come in, there's a proper way to greet Christ and to greet the saints. In fact there's even a pecking order. It makes sense, right. If you're going home and you have a house full of people, who are you going to go see first? You're going to see dad and mom, right, you're going to say hello to dad and mom first. Are they going to be the last ones? I mean, at least in traditional cultures, you go to the elders first, right, you greet them first.
Speaker 1:And so that's why, when we come in to the church, in most places we usually have an icon of Christ. We always, you know, make two matanyas, which are reverences, and kiss the icon of Christ, and there's a prayer that we even say. It can be very simple. It can be Lord, jesus, christ, I know God has mercy on me, a sinner, or Lord, have mercy. Okay, it can be very simple, especially if there's a lot of people backed up behind us wanting to venerate.
Speaker 1:Okay, we don't want to take the whole long time, but when we do greet the holy icons, it's also not like we come in and we don't. We're not trying to cause a senior distraction. We're coming together ourselves to pray and to focus. Those icons help us to focus. We don't have to imagine what Jesus looks like. We don't have to close our eyes. We don't close our eyes in Orthodox worship. We have our eyes wide open. That's why everything's provided for us, because we have this going back to the very beginning.
Speaker 1:We have the prototypes in the church, because, number one, jesus made an image and one of the oldest, the oldest icon we have. Well, actually, some people would argue humans are the oldest icons. When God created Adam and Eve, we were made in his image, that the first icon God ever made was man, and then woman, okay, but then one of the first holy icons. As we know, in the Orthodox Church we believe Jesus himself, according to the tradition that we've inherited from St Eusebius writes about this, and we had the letters between Jesus and King Agbar of Edessa, in which Jesus put his face to a cloth and sent it off to King Agbar, and when it was opened up there, the icon not made by hands was there and that was kept and preserved in Edessa until the Byzantine emperor took over that city and it was considered such an important relic. It was taken to Constantinople and we know that it was looted from one of the churches and on one of the ships of the loot that came out of Constantinople, it sank, unfortunately, in the Sea of Marma, so we lost it, the original. However, we've had so many copies made of it Now, some of them are stylistically different, but the notion is very same.
Speaker 1:If you look at that, if you look at some of the oldest icons not made by hands that we can have, and you put it up against Christ's Sinai, oh and, by the way, if you put it up against the Shroud of Turin. They just match up. It's just amazing. I mean to me the Shroud of Turin, this is Father John speaking here, and this is not the Orthodox Church speaking here. This is not our patriarchy or our metropolitan speaking here. I've studied it enough.
Speaker 1:I really believe that that is the burial cloth of Christ, especially because when you see all those things matching up and that's why the church has these things in their possession and they're trying to copy them very carefully, just like they copied the scriptures down very carefully, they're going to copy these icons very carefully, right? And one other thing, too, is also that we believe St Luke also being not only a doctor who's aware of medical things and aware of the natural world around him, also being a historian, but also being an artist that also painted. And we believe we possess still those icons and the prototypes of those have been passed along icons and the prototypes of those have been passed along. And so we have this. And it makes sense because you can go in the catacombs and you can see St Peter, you can see St Paul, and it's the same St Peter and Paul that we see here. Right, it's not what you see on the Chosen. They didn't look very carefully at that. They should have had an orthodox advisor. I have to put my plug in for that, but I do say that that's been passed along. And so there's that reliance on the form, so that we don't have to imagine those.
Speaker 1:They help to guide us and remind us that these are more than just windows into heaven. I like what Father Maximus ends up saying, that they're kind of like a mirror reflecting the kingdom of heaven which is meant to be within. But they're also seeking to engage us. That you know, when we say in the liturgy which we gather there, he's in our midst, and we turn and we say Christ is in our midst, you know we see that in the people of God assembled together. But the church has allowed us to put it on the walls and the building and even on panels that we can be able to come and show our affection to God, because we believe when we do that it's passed along to the prototype and our deep understanding of that is.
Speaker 1:The Lord is trying to show us through the iconography what we are called to be and that this is how God sees us. Now this is what's incredibly important and beautiful. When we show these icons. They're already shown from the perspective of the resurrection and past the great judgment, and into the fullness of the kingdom of heaven. St John, as he's shown on the iconostasis, is already resurrected and glorified. All right, st Anthony is already resurrected and glorified. St Anthony is already resurrected and glorified.
Speaker 1:St John is in multiple pieces throughout the world right now. So that's not how he looks right now, but it's showing us what it will be in the fullness of God's kingdom, and that's a reminder to us that that's what God wants for each and every one of us. He wants us resurrected and glorified and being like him, but in the uniqueness of our person, because Saint John is going to look different than Saint Anthony. They're just going to look different. All these saints are going to be around here. They're not going to necessarily look alike.
Speaker 1:They can't because of the uniqueness of the person and the great work and the gospel message of God is that he loves us so much that he's willing to take on our created flesh and our created spirit, for us, to unite his life with our life, in order to sanctify us, in order for us to become like him, not by nature. We can never be that, because he's unknowable by his nature and that essence of what it is to be uncreated spirit, but by his power, by his grace, we can become like him in how we live and behave and become thus the holy ones of God. And then the liturgy is reminding this constantly when it says the holy for the holy, we say the holy gifts for the holy people of God. The scriptures and the church's terminology is to call us holy by the work of God that he has accomplished for us, not only in time and space and he has to finish with the second coming, all right, and then the resurrection of everyone from the dead, and then the great judgment, but also what he is seeking for us to be by the end of all eternity, which never ends, and that is to be holy as he is holy, perfect as he is perfect, but in the uniqueness of our person. And that's what we're struggling to strive to be able to try to accomplish in this world, here, now.
Speaker 1:And that iconography is a reminder, as God's saying that's what I want you, each and every one of you, to be. You're called, each and every one, to be that. So it's not just for a few, a select few, it's meant to be for everyone, if we would have eyes to see and ears to hear, their roar would be deafening and encouraging. That we wouldn't feel like we're ever alone, we wouldn't feel like we're ever abandoned, that when any temptation or trial comes, we know that we have access to our Lord and his power because of how he's worked with all these people in their unique situations, their diverse situation, and he seeks to work the same through us. There's no difference in the fact that he loves one over the other. He loves us all, but he seeks to do his work within us.
Speaker 1:But that's going to be unique according to our person, and so I think very much so. It does give us that connection to what is, spiritually, the real reality that's going on around us when the liturgy is taking place. There are countless angels. We even say that in the hymns right we mystically represent the cherubim, and I know some holy priests and I'm definitely not there. There's one. I remember one story in which he would come out with the gifts and he was asking the angels to move out of the way, and he was aware of seeing the angels and he didn't want to trot on the angels as he's bringing the gifts out in the great entrance. We believe this is what's happening when we put these on the walls. It's helping to manifest the spiritual reality that we are surrounded by this cloud of witnesses, and thus they can cheer us on and help us on.