Orthodox Christianity, Vol III, Chp 7: Iconographical Tradition in Byzantium

Byzantine Mosaics and Frescoes of the 9th – 14th c. (pp.159-172); Book Miniatures (pp.179-184)

Byzantine Mosaics and Frescoes.

After the persecution of iconodules and holy images, iconography flourished. An example from the 9th c. in the Hagia Sophia Church in Thessalonica shows the Ascension. Christ wears a blue Hellenic himation (mantle), He gestures with a blessing, and He conveys “an expression of easy concentration” and this icon impresses on us “the sensation of presence.” A recurring and central theme of iconography types and subjects include the Ascension, the Annunciation, Christ Pantocrater (Almighty), the Theotokos Orans (Praying) and the Theotokos with Christ. Other scenes that are not found in the Gospel are taken from liturgical texts. The saints and hierarchy are depicted by rank and identified by their vestments. These iconographic scenes center our universe on Christ and the Theotokos. That source of life radiates out into the saints and creation, and that message is seen inside church frescoes and mosaics. Christ Pantocrater is an icon that portrays “the presence of the heavenly power in the life of man.” These icons not only taught the Holy Scriptures visually, but they also mainly focused on the liturgical calendar and the feast days of the Church, rather than “the sequence of the Gospels.” 

Byzantine iconography has roots in the Orthodox temples of the West. Some of the earliest frescoes are preserved at Castelseprio in northwestern Italy’s Lombardy region. From the 12th – 13th c., Italy’s Byzantine mosaics flourished in places such as Cefalù, Monreale, Palermo, Venice, and Rome. The Ravenna Exarchate also formed an enclave of Byzantine Orthodoxy in the Italian peninsula as well as the southern territories called Magna Graecia in ancient times. Metropolitan Hilarion comments that Latin Christianity coexisted harmoniously here in Italy with Byzantine iconography and theology. The mosaics of St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice from the 11th – 14th c., for example, were made by Greeks and were also modeled after the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople. Orthodox iconography in a variety of places such as Kosovo, Macedonia, Cyprus, Italy, or Serbia, all share a common feature: that Christ is placed in the center of all things. The canonical criteria of the Church for making icons were also followed in these diverse places. 

Book Miniatures.

Although most of the earliest icons are frescoes and mosaics, icons can also be made from wood painted panels, metal work, bas-reliefs, embroidered cloth, and manuscript illuminations. Book miniatures are manuscripts that are illumined with artwork, drawings, and decorations of religious themes. The holy scriptures and patristic texts could be illustrated, unlike icons, and not necessarily tied to liturgical calendars. In this way, these artistic codices could be original in iconographic content by exploring new themes. A few examples of miniatures occur in different languages and alphabets for reading the scriptures. The 9th c. Vienna Boniface Codex (Codex Vindobonensis 751) in Carolingian miniscule script, and these styled letters were also used to write Jerome’s Vulgate Bible. The 6th c. Rabula Gospels were written in an east Syriac script known as Estrangela with notes below the text in red ink. Pictures of the Ascension, Pentecost and Crucifixion can be seen as well in this kind of textual tradition. Iconoclasts would have been likely these Christian codices along with mosaics, frescoes, and painted icons. There is also a mingling of “antique and Byzantine Christian” themes. For example, the psalmist David is pictured alongside a personification of “Melody” and “Night” in classical Greek clothing. Some “liturgical orations” on certain saints and their depiction are found in the Saint Catherine Monastery on Mount Sinai. Homilies, the Menologion, and hagiography also formed part of book miniatures. Icons, murals and illustrated books all work in different ways to “fight for souls,” the Orthodox faith, and all Orthodox Christians. To continue in this similar vein of thought, the next chapter discusses the history and style of Russian icons that also faced its own iconoclastic battles that extended into the modern age. 

Orthodox Christianity, Vol III, Chp 7: Iconographical Tradition in Byzantium

Iconoclasm and the Veneration of Icons; Decorative Painting of Byzantine Churches (pp.135-158)

The Mandylion, also known as the Image Not-Made-By-Hands, is an icon of the face of Christ and His image represents the defense of venerating icons in the Church. It shows us that justice and beauty always overcome violence and death. In 721 AD, Arab Caliph Yazid prohibited icons in his territory. Also, Emperor Leo III the Isaurian from Syria promoted this “mentality” against holy images in worship. The violent forces within and outside of the Church were opposed specifically to representing Christ Jesus and the Holy. So, the incarnation and resurrection of Christ became strongly involved in the debates about iconography’s place in worship. 

Metropolitan Hilarion calls iconoclasm the “first reform movement” in the history of Christianity. Critics and iconoclasts seem to have feared that an “exact” image of Christ will replace Christ Himself as an idol and the wood itself become a god. Icons do not aim to be exact but follow canonical measures that allow artists to portray Christ in terms of beauty, theology and how that symbolic meaning can bring us closer to the Holy Trinity. Other critics may have feared that Greco-Roman arts were too pagan in flavor. If we deny that physical objects can become holy, then how we can become holy is in doubt, and we are close to protesting the incarnation of Christ. If we deny that Christ can be depicted in a holy and canonical way as a human like us, we come close to rejecting Christ’s divinity in his flesh. What replaces Christ, whenever his holy icon is removed, is man’s nature, the type, separated from its prototype, Christ Himself. Nature itself becomes the icon instead with art that depicts “shoots of plants and swarming cranes, ravens and pelicans.” It is a picture of the natural world and man without a God in the middle of it all and who is one of us in form. The Dome of Rock at Jerusalem and the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus have such naturalistic beauty without the Risen Christ proceeding in hierarchical order and in relationship with all creatures and the cosmos, as we often see in Byzantine mosaics, frescoes, and icons. Orthodoxy presents us with an integral worldview.

The Arian view that Christ’s resurrected flesh “becomes a casual detail” or the Muslim and Protestant view that Christ’s depiction and veneration is idolatry fails to understand the incarnation and the Eucharist. The consequence of these ideas leaves humanity and Christ separated from each other without a relationship to God the Father and the Holy Spirit, and so the flesh never has a chance to become deified through Christ’s flesh, the Eucharistic communion we share together. By protesting icons, Christ’s body only becomes an “instrument.” By refusing that divinity can dwell in a body, Christ only becomes a great prophet or teacher. Iconoclasts much like the Bolsheviks and certain militant, Protestant reformers revolted against the processional hierarchy that brings us into a relationship with the Holy Trinity. The misguided zeal of rulers, philosophical reasoning, and false prophecies have had a part in fighting against icons. But Christians of the 4th c. did not share this Arian teaching, even though the veneration of icons had not yet formulated rules for artists and for what symbols could be used for Christian doctrines, Eusebius of Caesarea explains. A canonization of icons, then, occurred in the 6th c., perhaps in a similar way that writings and scripture were later codified within the Church as well. Exodus 20:4-5 is often used to prove that icons are prohibited by Christian doctrine. But that passage would also prohibit the natural decorative arts often found in the Abrahamic faiths that include birds, fish, plants, animals, vines, all things of the earth. The “image of the invisible God” was made flesh so that what remains invisible can become visible, which mediates for us to access the Holy Trinity (Colossians 1:15) The end of iconoclasm only smashes one image and replaces it with another one. The revolt only substitutes one hierarchy for another. It only establishes one kind of veneration for another kind. To idolize anything is to see something besides God in what is represented to us, not to see the symbolic reality in holy images, but bare materiality, a lack of Christ in creation. Materialism, rationalism, scientism, fanaticism then can fill in the spaces emptied of holy icons. But Christ’s incarnation has transformed everything so that physical fountains of life can pour out for us. The incarnation is our deification. 

St. John of Damascus distinguishes two kinds of reverent honor in Orthodox worship. Latreia (adoratio, Latin) is an inner attitude that only offers worship to the Holy Trinity, not any creature. Honor or doulia (veneratio, Latin) is a term that designates the inner disposition of honoring someone higher than oneself, such as a parent, elder, pastor or ruler. Honor is a principle within the hierarchy of nature and in the divine realm as well. Making a metania or pyrokinesis (to prostrate, bow and kiss), making the sign of the cross and bowing down to the ground, is a common gesture of latria-worship and doulia-veneration in Orthodox temples. That the outward form may not differ very much from these distinctions in terms was not discussed by Metropolitan Hilarion. St. John of Damascus’s treatises formed in the 8th c. the standard view of iconodules (icon-venerators). He also has good definition of an icon, “an image is a likeness of the archetype.” He explains that the connection between the image and the archetype (a prototype or first image) is the name that they share. But the two images are different in essence or in other ways not the same. So, the image carries the name of the archetype, and that name also brings “divine grace to material objects.” Stuff doesn’t have grace in themselves, but only in connection to the name of the archetype. For example, the name of the saint sanctifies the image of the saint painted on wood because they share the same name, though they are different. In a way, this also mirrors Christ’s incarnation and our relationship to the Holy Trinity in our likeness. Iconography, then, opposes the camp of nominalist philosophy that rejects the inherent connection between name and image or objects.

Richard M. Weaver describes the philosopher of the Middle Ages. He says “the philosophic doctor” was someone who centered himself on humble wisdom and who had mastered all things; this philosopher stood at the center of things, not a striving backward in time nor by striving forward into the future; the wise are not bound by constraints of history. Icons show us that Christ has returned humanity and all things back to eternal “center.” The sections on Decorative Painting of Byzantine Churches (pp.148-158), Byzantine Mosaics and Frescoes of the 9th – 14th c. (pp.159-172), and Book Miniatures (pp.179-184) show us how physical nature works with divine nature, since the image bears the name of first image (archetype). What is often central in these iconographical scenes is Christ Ascended and Resurrected, the Communion of the Apostles with Christ sitting at the center, and Christ with the Most Holy Mother of God. Byzantine culture had found its “center” of all things in Christ Jesus, and in His Holy Name and Image. Icons fought for the doctrines of our salvation so that the Holy Trinity becomes the foundation and driving principal of our lives. Icons fight for the incarnation of Christ, His resurrection, His ascension, and our deification along with the whole cosmos. Icons teach us that we are only saved when we find the center of all in Christ and in our neighbor. 

Orthodox Christianity, Vol III, Chp 7: Iconographical Tradition in Byzantium

The Iconographical Tradition in Byzantium and the Canonical Image of Christ (pp.115-134) 

This section covers two parts in chapter seven, the Iconographical tradition in Byzantium and the Canonical Image of Christ. The encaustic icons of Sinai during the 6th – 7th c. were made by melting beeswax with a mixture of various colored pigments and letting it dry onto a wooden panel. For example, the icons of Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai uses this technique. The realistic Fayum mummy portraits are an example of this kind of image that influenced the style of making icons in the 6th – 7th c. These images of Egypt had a “monumental” purpose that sought to capture the beauty of the face before a loved one’s death, and later placed the portrait over the head of the mummy for burial. They sought immortality through pictorial representation. Christ Pantocrater (Omnipotent) is another early icon that later became the canonized version of the central icon of Christ in Orthodox temples. In this period, Christ appears more realistic. He wears a Greco-Roman chiton of dark blue color. He holds a jeweled book in his left hand, and He gives a blessing gesture with his right hand. Christ sits enthroned and there is a golden halo, the Divine Light, around His head. There seems to be a gradual change in purpose from Roman and Hellenistic monumental images to memorial icons of the martyrs and saints, Christ and the Theotokos. Orthodox Christianity rooted and fulfilled in Judaism “baptizes” the Mediterranean gentile cultures into purity and enlightenment, as Baker Galloway, St. John the Forerunner’s iconographer explains this “tense dialogue between paganism and Christianity.” Many early icons, then, have this Romanesque expression, vestments, and bodily shapes, and fuller, hierarchical compositions that include Christ, the Most Holy Mother of God, the angels and saints, Old Testament righteous and scenes begin to surface in temples. Early depictions of Christ have the antique type of painting that portrays Christ as a younger, Roman, beardless man who wears a poncho-like garment, that is shown in the earliest crucifixion icons in the 8th c. in Sinai. The later canonical icon of Christ – also known as Christ Pantocrater – appears more Palestinian in features with longer hair, a full beard and more mature in age. This type has been preserved the longest not because it is really more ancient but because of its connection to tradition in literary accounts of the Teaching of Addai in the 5th c. and the Acts of Thaddeus in Greek in the 7th c. These stories tell us that King Abgar of Edessa asked for healing by Christ. Khannan the archivist was sent to paint Christ’s face by the king. It became too difficult for him to depict Christ’s face, and so He wiped his face on a cloth, and that imprinted on it His face. That image became known in Byzantium as acheiropoieta, the Image Not-Made-By-Hands, or mandylion. The fight for Abgar’s health was also a fight for his soul and others. Another king from Persia, Khosrou, in the 6th c. also asked for an image of Christ to save his city and people from a destructive storm. The real face of Christ Jesus on this cloth came to Constantinople from Edessa in the 10th c. and later it was taken to Europe by the Crusaders in 1204 and it finally rested at Turin, Italy. There it became known as The Shroud of Turin. The two images turn out to be very likely the same picture of Jesus, as many scholars have discovered over the years. The shroud shows the more Semitic appearance of Christ rather than the young Roman with a tunic. Here he looks Jewish. He has longer hair, a full beard, and he appears to be more mature.  The true imprint of his face is made from Christ’s sweat and blood, from which is the source of all holiness and nourishment. So, the Pantocrater at Sinai became the first canonical icon of Christ, who is the central figure in iconic scenes and compositions of later Orthodox temples. Metropolitan Hilarion argues that this antique style probably was used because Roman Christians weren’t aware of what Jesus looked like in Rome. The process of painting the icon of Christ is like the saints. There is a real person, with sweat and blood, and miracles begin to happen. There are writings, oral stories, and witnesses. People paint them after their death and more miracles and gifts and graces pour forth from their images, who are painted by human hands. But in reality Christ has painted them into the archetypal, true, living icons in paradise. That relationship takes places bodily through our senses and experiences.

There are several reasons why not many icons from this period are preserved. The icons are very old, and there were not enough of them to commonly hang on walls. In fact, for iconoclasts who opposed specifically “holy images” in Orthodox worship, there were not an abundance of icons in circulation and veneration compared to later times. Iconoclasm from within Byzantine Christianity and ideas from the Islamic world influenced this “first reformed movement” that stamped out and destroyed many painted icons, mosaics, and frescoes. In this way, like Irina Yazykova has argued in her book, Hidden and Triumphant, icons in Christianity were mostly a hidden phenomenon. 

Metropolitan Hilarion, as well as Irina Yazykova, have explained that icons “fight for souls” and the Orthodox faith. The term iconoclast only comes from the 18th c. The older word used was iconomachy, and that Greek word literally means icon-battle. It was a real spiritual warfare over the incarnation of Christ that leads to the deification of humanity and creation; it was a fight for keeping our relationship with the Holy Trinity close to the senses and hearts of all Christians. 

Orthodox Christianity, Vol III, Chp 6: Early Christian Painting

Part Two begins in Chapter 6 with the veneration of icons in Early Christian Painting. Icons in Byzantium and Russia have an important historical and theological development for iconography today. Lastly, the Meaning of Icons in Chapter 9 summarizes the content of icons. Symbolism has always existed in religions across the world and in philosophical traditions. Symbolic representation is foundational for human thought. The meaning of icons in its theological, anthropological, cosmic, liturgical, mystical, and moral aspects can be linked directly to symbolism. Some symbols were given by God Himself in the Old Testament, when certain images of angelic cherubim were built onto the ark of the covenant, Moses’ bronze serpent was ordered to be made, and the cross shaped tabernacle emerged from its major items that run west to east. The former was forbidden to be touched; the latter God commanded to behold for healing just as certain liturgical objects are not casually touched by anyone and others are meant to be touched and tasted for healing in the Orthodox Church. There are differences in how we offer veneration or what we venerate, or put more simply, to give our utmost honor to holy symbols that help us worship the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Jews didn’t define all images as fundamentally “graven.” Extreme positions like that have been held most closely by some Protestant and Muslim groups. Solomon’s Temple, for example, included images of plants, angels, and the astronomical zodiac. How we look at other bodies, the earth’s plants and animals, the constellations matters because what we represent in our minds finds symbolic meaning in physical things; it is a matter of how we discern the means from the ends. 

Although Metropolitan Hilarion takes one of his starting points with what he terms “Greco-Roman painting,” a better term that captures the diverse flavor of the times would be Hellenistic culture. The Hellenistic age began with the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and arose with the death of Cleopatra, with Egypt having come into the Roman Empire around 30 BC. Hellenism was a mixed culture of Roman, Greek, and Semitic peoples like Levantines, Egyptians, and Jews. Some historians argue that this blended Mediterranean environment continued when Constantine the Great moved his capital to Constantinople. The hyphenated word Greco-Roman implies a monolithic civilization and it is useful for some styles inherited from those peoples, such as Roman frescoes in the Christian catacombs. But places like Fayum, Egypt represent this mixture well, where specific stylistic techniques, like melting beeswax and mixing different colored vegetable paints, were fused into the iconography of the Church along with Roman frescoes in the catacombs. In the Fayum mummy portraits, one sees the noticeable European and Semitic features of the people living there with Roman dress and Greek adornments. The portraits were made while the individuals were alive and were very realistic like a modern photograph or portrait. But they are unlike the more idealized depictions of ancient Egypt or Greece. The images were kept around the household until the death of that person and placed on the tomb. Iconography in painting and frescoes share with these Egyptian mummy portraits, which only lasted from the 2nd to the 3rd c. AD, the idea that ordinary people desire to memorialize the dead. What’s different between them is that icons represent transfigured humans in the next life whereas the mummies portray humans as they were in this life. To have a glimpse into paradise now is a unique perspective of Christians. In fact, studies on the Fayum portraits show, though they are well-known for their captivating beauty, that some of the bulging of the eyes, also known as exophthalmos, the cross-eyed expressions, and the noticeable facial asymmetry of some of them was probably not stylistic in purpose. After the discovery of skulls in graveyards that match the individuals in the paintings, researchers and artists have discerned diseases and deformities on the faces that were known to ancient medical practices of Egypt and the Greeks. Icons do show some important distinguishing features of the saints, but the overall meaning is to convey a universal transformation of the body and soul that can happen even in this life. The path of deification and transformation that many Christians have taken happened in the Roman catacombs, where the tombs and frescoes memorialized the saints and martyrs. Icons of saints are painted after their repose, unlike in Fayum, because Christians have trampled down death by death and Christ bestows life upon those in the tombs.