Orthodox Icons Quotes

The figure in the icon is not meant to represent literally what Peter or John or any of the apostles looked like, or what Mary looked like, nor the child, Jesus. But, the orthodox painter feels, Jesus of Nazareth did not walk around Galilee faceless. The icon of Jesus may not look like the man Jesus two thousand years ago, but it represents some *quality* of Jesus, or his mother, or his followers, and so becomes an open window through which we can be given a new glimpse of the love of God.

The veneration of sacred portraits – icons – has been an essential element of Orthodox Christianity ever since, and marked Byzantine religious culture until the empire’s end.

It is not a gathering of 'escapees' from the world, bitterly enjoying their escape, feeding their hate for the world. Listen to their psalms and hymns; contemplate the transparent beauty of their icons, their movements, of the entire *celebration. It is truly cosmical joy that permeates all this; it is the entire creation - its matter and its time, its sounds and colors, its words and silence - that praises and worships God and in this praise becomes again itself: the Eucharist, the sacrament of unity, the sacrament of the new creation.

Malevich presented dozens of his Suprematist paintings, with Black Square given pride of place. It was hung near the ceiling, high up in a corner, positioned diagonally across the right angle where the two walls meet. The location was important. It was an allusion to the iconic status Malevich was attributing to the painting, as it is the position in Russian Orthodox homes reserved for religious iconography.

...'unless you convert to Orthodoxy, you too will follow your Pope down that valley, through the scorching fire. We will watch you from this balcony,' he added, 'but of course it will then be too late to save you.' I smiled, but Fr. Theophanes was in full swing and clearly in no mood for joking. 'No one can truly know what that day will be like.' He shook his head gravely. 'But some of our Orthodox fathers have had visions. Fire-fire that will never end, terrible, terrible fire - will come from the throne of Christ, just like it does on the icons. The saints-those who are to be saved, in router words the Orthodox Church-will fly in the air to meet Christ. But sinners and all non-Orthodox will be separated from the Elect. The damned will be pushed and prodded by devils down through the fire, down from the Valley of Joseph, past here-in fact exactly the route those Israeli hikers took today-down, down to the Mouth of Hell.' 'Is that nearby?' 'Certainly,' said Theophanes, stroking his beard. 'The Mouth of Hell will open up near the Dead Sea.' 'That is in the Bible?' 'Of course,' said Theophanes. 'Everything I am telling you is true.

The experience of the Terek Cossacks is also important because it stands so apart from the Cossack myth. Like cowboys in the United States, gauchos in Argentina, and many other frontier social groups who became national icons, by the end of the nineteenth century Cossacks represented the soul of Russian national identity. They were, according to the myth, deeply Russian in spirit if not ethnicity (strong, spontaneous, Russophone, Orthodox), Christian warriors of the tsar, intrepid scouts and explorers, the vanguard of Russification, conquering wilderness, alien enemies, and alien cultures alike. The history of the Terek Cossacks shows how shallow that myth was–many were neither Russian nor Orthodox, they were more losers than victors in their struggle with the “wilderness,” they fought mostly for themselves and their sense of honor rather than for an empire or a tsar, and were far from being agents of Russian civilization.

In the icon of the Wedding at Cana, we see the married couple in the context of all of those who constitute the communities in which they live, reminding us that in marriage we do not live in isolation, and that we are responsible to hold up marriage as the primary human relationship in our lives while maintaining and growing loving relationships with others.

The teacher here is the one who says, “You will do greater things than I.” This teacher stays only for a season so that the words, which act as bridge to truth, do not become a blockage to it, and so that their iconic presence does not morph into an idolatrous one. Thus, we can say that a total and complete fidelity to our teacher, an unthinking devotion to her words, will always end up being nothing but a betrayal.

The Kingdom of God is not a Talmud, nor is it a mechanical collection of scriptural or patristic quotations outside our being and our lives. The Kingdom of God is within us, like a dynamic leaven which fundamentally changes man's whole life, his spirit and his body. What is required in patristic study, in order to remain faithful to the Fathers' spirit of freedom and worthy of their spiritual nobility and freshness, is to approach their holy texts with the fear in which we approach and venerate their holy relics and holy icons. This liturgical reverence will soon reveal to us that here is another inexpressible grace. The whole atmosphere is different. There are certain vital passages in the patristic texts which, we feel, demand of us, and work within us, an unaccustomed change. These we must make part of our being and our lives, as truths and as standpoints, to leaven the whole. And at the same time we must put our whole self into studying the Fathers, waiting and marking time. This marriage, this baptism into patristic study brings what we need, which is not an additional load of patristic references and the memorizing of other people's opinions, but the acquisition of a new clear-sighted sense which enables man to see things differently and rightly. If we limit ourselves to learning passages by heart and classifying them mechanically — and teach men likewise — then we fall into a basic error which simply makes us fail to teach and make known the patristic way of life and philosophy.

The icon is like a pair of spectacles which you put on to see heaven . . . Orthodox Christianity believes very strongly that you and I can meet the godhead, that we can almost become like gods. It's that extraordinary, frightening statement that Western Christianity is very shy of. - Diarmaid MacCulloch, Professor of History of the Church at Oxford University

Any subsidiary vaults and structural extensions assume the shape of a cross, the ultimate symbol of reconciliation and transfiguration (especially from the sixth-century reign of Justinian). The same iconographic pattern is extended and applies to the Evangelists, or authors of the four Gospels, who are depicted above the four columns supporting the church’s dome, as well as to Saint John the Baptist, or Forerunner, who is portrayed on the icon screen, always turned toward and pointing to Jesus. THE

When we contemplate icons, good and wholesome holy meanings are created within us. A human being, you see, is not just soul and spirit but also mind, imagination, feelings, senses. An individual is a unified whole, a unified entity. The aim of the Ecclesia is to divinize the person in his or her totality. It is the whole person that strives to reach God. This is the reason why we offer exercises in the Ecclesia that relate to the body, such as fasting, prostrations, staying up during all-night vigils, all the rituals that the saints have been doing throughout the ages.

As related in the novel, Russia’s second-largest budget expenditure—after the military—is devoted to restoring the Russian Orthodox Church. It’s seen as a means to a spiritual renewal for the country, a way of instilling national pride. But there remain darker shades to this funding, one tied to the Tikhvin Icon, one of Russia’s most sacred treasures. The story of the icon’s history—vanishing from Constantinople and reappearing to Russian fishermen—is held as holy proof that Russia is destined to be the Third Rome, the future spiritual center of the world, with the Trinity Lavra as its new Vatican City. This belief is one of the main reasons that a vocal number of the Russian Orthodox Church, including its patriarch, sanction Russia’s military conquest of other countries. But that is not Russia’s only ambition.

Our purpose in life in life, that is, life according to the Fathers of the Philokalia, is to keep tending the inner flame of the Holy Spirit which burns before the image (icon) of God in the chapel of our heart. Whenever we feel that the warmth is fading, we need to make an effort to re-kindle it through prayer, inner attention, repentance, ascesis, hesychia, Scripture reading, the Eucharist, almsgiving, acts of charity, etc.

Are we able to see that deeper “reality"? Much of the work in spiritual growth is along that line; we are always trying to adjust our perception so we can see the “real" reality, trying to crash through our habitual assumption that we are alone in this world, that God is too busy to notice what we're doing, and that if he's watching at all, it's "From a Distance."* The kind of “realism" icons bring helps correct our perception, bringing it into accord with the presence of God throughout all creation,

The well-known saying of Blessed Augustine: “Love, and do what you will,” really means: “Love God, and do what you will.” This could be a good motto for teenagers and those who are trying to guide them on a Christian path. The love of God is a safeguard, a guarantee of repentance, whatever transgressions we may commit. A child who loves God is safer than a child who is restricted to the point where he rebels against God. A girl asked a Christian adult once how she should dance, and the adult answered, “Dance in a such a way that you enjoy yourself; but enjoy yourself in such a way that when you come home to your room, you can face the icon of the Lord and thank Him—not so that you come home and feel ashamed to look upon His face.

For just as one person’s idol is another’s icon, so one person’s fable is another’s parable.