It is the purpose of icons to represent people or events, not in natural light, but in the light of the Kingdom of God. Therefore, even the dead are seen as transfigured, illuminated, deified. This is a paschal book, and, according to the Orthodox vision of Pascha, death is already defeated and powerless. The author aims to open the reader's eyes, through images and words, to this theological perspective and to the place of death within it.

Heroes of the Icon is a book about people, events and ideas related to the phenomenon called the Orthodox icon. 1) The first of the chapters deals with the three decisive points in history which form the foundation on which the icon stands. It concerns not only the moments in history but also the people involved who helped define what an icon is. The initial moment presents Moses and the people of Israel, around the year 1270 B. C., after having escaped from Egypt. They were at Mt. Sinai a...

This book presents a series of essays for edification, discussion, comment and even disagreement. The exposition on the theme of God the Father in iconography returns to the roots of Orthodox iconography from which practitioners have strayed so completely, especially in recent centuries. Today, there is a tremendous interest in authentic iconography engendered, among other things, by greater freedom to travel in such countries as Russia where 18th and 19th century icons of God the Father a...

This book is a collection of studies on the general theme of Orthodox icons. 1) As the title of the book indicates, the first article deals with the similarity between religious images of the Romanesque period (900-1200) in Western Europe and Orthodox icons. As the difference between icons and later Western religious images—Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque etc.—is felt first on the intuitive and then explained on the rational level, so icons and Romanesque religious images manifest a similarit...

This book aims at combating the Hostility Theory which claims that the Christians in the pagan Roman Empire had no images and rejected them as idolatrous. Did the early Christians, during the first three centuries, 33–313, have images in their churches or places of worship and homes? If they did not, was that because they thought that all images were idols or close to being idols? Did they think that making and having images of Old Testament people and events as well as of Jesus, the apost...

In contrast to Renaissance religious paintings, for example, traditional, canonical icons show people and events in a Light different from the natural light of this world. In order to make such a distinction clear, this PowerPoint presentation, transformed into an ebook, first of all, defines Orthodox Christian iconography as a theological art which manifests the vision of salvation as seen by Christian Orthodoxy. It is important to understand what that vision is, so secondly this book pre...

The first section of this book deals with seeing God and making an image of him: what is permissible, what is not and why? Starting with the Old and New Testaments, this study details the various theophanies—divine manifestations—in the Bible. How did the prophets and apostles see God? This is important because it is on the basis of the principle of "what is seen can be represented in an image" that representations of God have been justified. How do the Church Fathers understand seeing God...

Pour apprécier l'icône orthodoxe, il faut comprendre plusieurs éléments à la fois : l'histoire, la théologie, l'objet d'art, les artistes. D'abord, l'histoire : l'iconographie s'est développée à travers de longs siècles, atteignant de nobles cimes, puis des abîmes de décadence. Ensuite, la théologie : les icônes proposent une vision du salut de l'homme et de la transfiguration de la création. Troisièmement, l'objet d'art lui-même : avant tout, une icône est une « chose » matérielle créée p...

Catholic and Protestant theologians, along with the majority of art historians, have traditionally identified the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in two creation scenes on sarcophagi dating from the mid-4th century: the Dogmatic Sarcophagus in the Vatican Museum and the Trinity-Spouses Sarcophagus in the Archaeological Museum of Arles, France. This book presents the viewpoint that scholars, at the time of the discovery of these sarcophagi in 1838 and 1974 respectively, were influenced...

St. Epiphanius of Salamis lived in Cyprus during the 4th century. He is a Father of the Church known for his determined fight against heresy. And yet, five texts denouncing any use of images have been attributed to him. On the basis of these documents, he has been given, by some, the title of forerunner of the 8th-century Iconoclasm. He is supposed to have thought that any form of image veneration, however Christian the image may be, is a form of idolatry. In agreement with the Jewish reli...

Unity, joy, simplicity, beauty, truth-these are the hallmarks of the three Persons in one God, the Trinity. In Contemplating the Trinity, Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, the preacher to the papal household, invites readers to turn to the Trinity so that they can enter into and experience the relationship of love that the divine Persons share with one another. Convinced that Christians today need a spirituality that is more clearly trinitarian, Fr. Cantalamessa draws from theology, spirituality, ...

“The Devil holds the strings which move us!” (Charles Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil, 1857.) Satan, Beelzebub, Lucifer… the Devil has many names and faces, all of which have always served artists as a source of inspiration. Often commissioned by religious leaders as images of fear or veneration, depending on the society, representations of the underworld served to instruct believers and lead them along the path of righteousness. For other artists, such as Hieronymus Bosch, they provided a...