[NOTE: The picture to which I refer in this post, which I originally emailed a couple of friends, is at THIS URL; it’s a 696×1347 pixel 496KB JPEG image of the classic Greek icon, Jesus Christ of Sinai.]
On the eighth of February, 2004, I drove to Columbia, SC to hear Orthodox theologian Frederica Mathewes-Green speak about the significance and interpretation of icons in the Greek/Eastern Orthodox Church.
MapQuest told me that it was just over 7 miles outside of the very middle of downtown Columbia, so I thought that twenty minutes would surely be ample time to find this church, because surely it would be a large building. At this point, it seems an ignorant assumption on my part that I thought this would be set apart in a suburb, an amalgamation of coptic and western European architecture, a kind of neogothic, artificially aged and authentic cathedral. (The one Catholic church in Greenville is a four-story, elaborately-constructed behemoth–beautiful and unmistakably “churchy”, partially owing *perhaps* to the fact that it’s constructed in the shape of a cross, among other things.) Imagine my surprise, then, when it took me a full forty minutes to find this place out behind a small neighborhood in an industrial area of town. Chain link, broken asphalt, that sort of thing. A tiny square building right off of a dark, narrow road is what I finally found, the St. Barnabas Orthodox Church, at 7:20 that evening.
I walked in, sat down among the very sparse crowd (15, maybe 20 altogether), and began taking notes. The overhead projector had on it a picture: “Jesus Christ of Sinai,” of which a canvas print (or painting?–I didn’t get to see it up close) stood on an easel behind Dr. Mathewes-Green as she spoke. The notes from the lecture follow, and I’ll use the attached picture as reference.
Throughout the presentation she explained that this icon was probably the most significant in the Orthodox Church, the most beloved, and the most recognizable. As I sat down she was explaining that this picture (again, attached as jcsinai.jpg) shows Christ as the eternal ruler, our blessed judge-king, creator and savior–in a word: Pantocrator.
Christ is portrayed bust-length, which evidently is the “typical” mode of expression of Christ in Greek icons; his right hand is bestowing blessing, and his left hand holds a copy of the Gospels. Dr. Mathewes-Green explained that in the Orthodox Church the Gospels are regarded as a separate entity from the rest of the canon, set apart and “higher” in a sense. Literature I grabbed after the presentation explained that the Gospels could only be read in a congregation by the Father (id est, the priest), and that they were regarded as extremely important (over and above the rest of the Canon). If I sound redundant, I’m trying to emulate the way Dr. Mathewes-Green was expositing: she drilled this home to make way for the corresponding point in this painting of Christ of Sinai. That is, specifically, the significance of the Gospels in this painting is especially highlighted by the fact that the book Christ holds is almost three-dimensionally reaching outside the icon to grab the viewer’s attention and to show the importance of that book–as well as the insignificance of the beholder in relation to the Truth of God. Bejeweled and highly ornate, this is how a devout Orthodox worshiper likes to have his or her Book of the Gospels if he or she has been blessed monetarily enough to purchase one thus bedecked. As a side-note that I found interesting and, from an evangelical Protestant perspective, somewhat unsettling was that the book of Revelation is not a part of the Orthodox canon. Interestingly, the prescribed readings and reading-traditions had already been set in the Orthodox Church (according to Dr. M-G) by the time said book had been admitted into the official Scriptures (the fourth century A.D.), so it was disregarded entirely. Tradition, I was to find out, is held in quite lofty regard by the most pious Orthodox believers.
Dr. M-G either did not bother to explain the right hand of Christ in detail or she explained it before I arrived; either way, I’ll extrapolate from the pamphlets I acquired from the presentation. The ring and pinky fingers are touching(?) the thumb, which is symbolic, in Orthodox tradition, of the Trinity; the fore and middle fingers are together and slightly outstretched from the palm, symbolic of Christ’s dual nature (fully God and fully man). If I remember correctly, this holds true in Roman Catholic icons as well, and most Western religious paintings.
Before focusing upward in the icon, Dr. Mathewes-Green paused in her analysis to explain the media and means of painting, as well as the history behind this icon. Most ancient icons, including this one, were painted with egg tempera using ground lapis lazuli and other dyes for coloring.[*] Because tradition holds that candles are to be lit before the icons, smoke damaged many of the paintings and would have to be constantly retouched over time. Hence, until 1962, she explained, this Christ of Sinai was thought to hail from the 14th century, but using advanced techniques, scientists have been able to remove most of the auxiliary layers and have discovered that it is in fact one of the very oldest icons if not The Oldest indeed (she didn’t give a date or range; Google results report that a likely dating is in the sixth or seventh centuries).
[*] A readable and highly-detailed explanation of egg tempera painting can be found at the following website, found by another quick Googling:
http://www.antir.com/scribes/tempera.html
Dr. M-G then explained that the overall effect of this gloriously beautiful icon used to be unappealing to her, coming from a Western background as she has: that she used to criticise the misbalanced proportions of the painting, the simplicity, and cetera, preferring instead Romantic-era religious paintings which she subsequently criticized as being “too emotionally busy” in comparison to the simple depth of this icon and others like it. Explaining then that she had since acquired a taste and appreciation for icons such as this, she related an anecdote about a gentleman who was a humanist and an atheist who found himself entranced by this icon (”like He was looking into my soul”) and was saved after having pondered it and inquiring about it with Dr. Mathewes-Green’s husband. All of this was to lead into a discussion of perspective and the emotional power of the piece.
Art in Western cultures even today, she explained, are based on several common foundations, one of which is perspective. If you take a landscape painting, for instance, you can draw all the lines to the center of the piece and watch as the objects, people, and colors fade into a certain point in the picture. It’s as though you could step into the painting and be a part of it if only it were real: that the edge of the canvas is only a window or a door, the framing really only a portal. This point at which all the perspective-lines converge is known as the “vanishing point.”
Well, in Orthodox icons, she explained, especially Christ of Sinai, the perspective is intentionally distorted. The Book of the Gospels, for instance, is huge, “like standing next to a skyscraper and looking straight up.” The face of Christ and the picture itself (not the physical painting/canvas, but the overall effect) “widens as it goes up and back,” and of central importance is that the vanishing point is reversed. The point of convergence, instead of being within (behind) the picture, it is actually in front of the icon: the beholder becomes the vanishing point: the off-balance feeling that the painting gives the viewer is intentional, to convey one’s helplessness, defenselessness, and dependence upon God Almighty. Thus, the effect of the icon as a whole is to invoke reverence and awe.
Turning then to the head and face of Christ, Dr. M-G explained that the face is made wider by the ears, and still wider by the wreath of hair and the halo around Christ’s head. (This, again, helps create the convergence point in the fore of the picture.) Haloes were invented by iconographers to convey a certain aspect about most holy personages and about God Himself. Although haloes are usually–especially in icons–portrayed as flat, dingy-golden disks behind the person’s head, they are meant to convey a “sphere of the aura of God surrounding the whole person, like the glow of light around a candle flame.” Often, she noted, God is described as a being of light, and radiates the “uncreated light” of His being, His love, and His power in those on whom His favor rests. Baptism, for instance, was first or frequently (she seemed unclear on the point) in the ancient Church called “illumination.”
Driving her point home with an illustration of how this divine light has been “manifested even as late as the eighteenth century,” she expounded the teaching of a certain Saint Seraphim. I found the anecdote on a website[*] and will copy the most relevant portion here: “St. Seraphim prayed to God that [the person with whom he was conversing,] Motovilov would see with his physical eyes the spiritual message he was trying to convey about acquiring the Holy Spirit. It was then that St. Seraphim was surrounded by the divine light, which was so powerful that Motovilov could barely look at him.”
[*] The link from which I pulled this quote has a much more detailed account of this incident. The URL follows.
http://www.onearthasinheaven.com/seraphim.html
Now, the features of the face of Christ were incredibly intriguing. Dr. M-G brought up another transparency, this one focusing only on the face. She explained that there were really two faces hidden there, if one just looks carefully: and in so saying, she covered the left side (our left, Christ’s right) with a sheet of paper and there was a collective sigh of appreciation from the audience.
This side of Christ’s face holds a penetrating look, one in which the eyebrow is cocked in a certain kind of knowing, self-contained ferocity, and the pupil of the eye is pointed directly at the viewer, nailing him to the floor where he stands or sits. Take note of the deep reddish shadows, a kind of judgment motif on this side of the face: Christ exposes our sins for what they are, an affront to God Himself and His perfection. Concurrently, however, there is a bit of humor here in our Lord’s face: Dr. Mathewes-Green pointed out the slightly upturned mouth beneath the moustache and related the following personal anecdote. When her daughter was a child, she got into her mother’s makeup and rather soiled herself therewith in great proportion, and then promptly came to her mother almost in sackcloth and ashes because she could not remove most of it herself and she feared being discovered. Though Dr. M-G disciplined her daughter (not harshly) and explained that she should not get into her mother’s things, she was really attempting to hold back an uproarious laugh at the child’s caper. Likewise, the Lord knows what we are going to do before we do it, so it’s not quite appropriate to say that he is angry with us, at least not in the sense of being disappointed or negatively surprised by our sin. That look that says, “Even when you err, I love you with all my heart.” A very complex look, disturbing, disconcerting, and intentionally so. “It’s as if the Lord is saying to us, `I’ve got your number,’” said Dr. M-G, to the amusement of her now-riveted (convicted?) audience. This side of the face of Christ, then, presents Him as challenging, just, and mighty–but also friendly and (perhaps subtly) compassionate.
Moving then to switch the paper from the left to the right so that Christ’s right was then uncovered, another sigh of interest issued from the audience. This face is tranquil, a picture of peace “that surpasses all understanding.” Notice that on the left side of the face there are no shadows; there is no judgment here. Christ’s eyebrow is “bent like the bow of a violin,” sympathetic, listening. The mouth is turned ever so slightly down–perhaps slack–as though in sympathy for the pains we suffer and for the wrongs that have been done unto us (and, indeed, those that have been done *by* us); his eyebrow is raised in invitation, his eye looking at ours softly, inviting us to tell Him our sorrows, our loves, our pains, everything on our minds. This is the side of Christ, she said, to whom we can run and confess, to whom we can bleed emotionally and spiritually. Another pointed anecdote at this point: God hears us and is patient with us, much more patient than we are with ourselves and each other. Case in point, a baby just learning to walk. Even if the baby doesn’t expect to fall, we know that it will. God helps us up when we fall and then beckons us to Him once again, knowing we’ll fall again in the process but loving us even so.
The overall effect of the icon, then, especially of Christ’s face–so saying the lecturer removed the sheet from the overhead, exposing the whole face–is complex and soul-searching, revealing and intimate. Dr. M-G was careful to note that, when confession was made before an icon, an Orthodox priest was a witness thereto but was not involved in the absolution of sins. She touched again, briefly, on how complex this and icons like this one are and how, by contrast, Western religious paintings are far too emotionally busy and not “deep” enough in this sense to evoke the kinds of reactions that Orthodox icons do. She explained that icons of this sort touch either the reason or the emotions, plus the “nous” (Greek for soul, if I understand correctly, the seat of the reason and feelings both) of a person. I was a bit left in the dark about this point–she spoke as to a crowd well-acquainted with religious jargon, which was probably indeed the case, but I thought this was interesting nonetheless. (She contrasted this with Western religious art, which touches both thought and feeling but somehow not the Nous.)
Finally, she noted that many Western Christians imported icons into their worship and/or ways of doing things, but that without being rooted in the Orthodox Church, this practice would not be as fulfilling as it otherwise could or should be. She made the observation that taking the icons from Orthodoxy and leaving everything else was like putting flowers in a vase in your house: yes, they will be pretty, but they will die without roots, and wilt like they would not if they were in life-giving soil (of the Church, that is). (If she exhibited a bit of denominational elitism in so saying, who can blame her?–I probably would too if I believed my church to be a mere extension of the One Original & True Church.)
After a few closing comments and a verbal thanks to skete.com (from which she procured the icon standing on the easel behind her throughout the lecture), she closed with Psalm 32, a hyperlink to which can be found immediately below.
http://tinyurl.com/2r753
Enjoy.]
