What is the significance of the icon in the orthodox church

Some Christians throughout history have interpreted this passage to mean that no religious images or visual art are allowed by God. In fact, the Church struggled with this issue throughout the eighth and ninth centuries finally defeating iconoclasm and upholding the use of icons in worship, a day we celebrate every year on the Triumph of Orthodoxy.

The Church made clear the position of images in the worship of the Church and their relationship to the second commandment:. The Triumph of Orthodoxy. We even have an icon about icons. In the Eastern Catholic Churches, a married priest is one who married before being ordained. The Catholic Church considers the law of clerical celibacy to be not a doctrine, but a discipline. It is an unmerited gift from Christ. Only men can be deacons; it is an ordained position and only men can be ordained in the Catholic Church.

Transitional deacons are seminary students in the process of becoming ordained priests. They serve as deacons for one year and are then ordained by the bishop as priests. A felony conviction does not appear on that list. Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search. Press ESC to cancel. Ben Davis July 8, What is the significance of the icon in the Orthodox Church? Did the Eastern Orthodox Church believe in icons?

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However, it seems that the issues at stake that were so hotly debated in the East were not quite well understood in the West or were, perhaps, even intentionally misunderstood.

Thus, at the Seventh Ecumenical Council the letter of the bishop of Rome was read, which represented a strong moral support for the iconophiles, but its content was, theologically speaking, irrelevant for the issues discussed. Nevertheless, the papal delegates endorsed the Council and signed its documents that affirmed the veneration of images and ordered bowing down prosk ynesis in front of them.

A Latin translation of the documents originally written in Greek was made and sent to Charlemagne — This unfortunate translation only contributed to the confusion, since it was not clear how the proper way of relating to icons, that the decrees talked about, was not idolatry or superstition. Paradoxically enough, what the Council had explicitly condemned — the adoration of icons — under the threat of excommunication, was understood as something that the Council had, at least partly, advocated for.

However, as in the case of the Eastern iconoclasm, the issue here was not strictly theological or ecclesial, but — even more — political.

It coincided with Charlemagne's aspirations to imperial power which was difficult to legitimize given the presence of the only legitimate Roman emperor in Constantinople , and the interest of the papacy, which sought a new political alliance once the Eastern Roman Empire was weakened and absent from most of its traditional territories on the Italian peninsula. In response to the Seventh Ecumenical Council, Charlemagne's council of Frankfurt rejected the decisions of the "synod of the Greeks", and the "adoration" of images.

The major theological work composed at Charlemagne's court, which later became known as Libri Carolini prepared by Theodulf ca. In the West the theology of icons became relevant again in the 16th century with the Counter-Reformation.

Among a variety of issues, the Council also dealt in its last session with the issue of images that most of the Protestant theologians considered idolatrous.

The Council returned here to the formulations of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, ordering that honor and veneration are to be given to images, since the honor given to images refers to the prototype they depict. Given the preeminent position of the Eastern Roman Empire in the Christian world for a very long time, Constantinople exercised a dominant cultural and artistic influence over the neighboring territories.

Its influence on European art can clearly be traced for over a millennium. Painting in Carolingian as well as Romanesque times developed under a strong influence of Eastern Roman art and, in many cases, as its natural continuation.

Paintings were often executed by artists who either came from the Eastern Empire or whose workshops were influenced by the workshops of Constantinople and other artistic centers of the Greek-speaking regions. The design of St. Mark's cathedral in Venice 11th century followed the architecture of the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople.

Layers of its decoration remain organically linked with the traditional painting from the imperial capital. The same features can be seen in the famous 12th-century mosaic from Santa Maria in Trastevere in Rome , which also introduced an important iconographic innovation. Even after the fall of the Eastern Empire in , some of the famous icon painting workshops continued to operate and to service its western primarily Venetian customers.

A famous example is Crete Regno di Candia, — with its art workshops that were developing a distinct style and iconographic program over the course of many centuries under Venetian rule.

Major developments of the 14th and 15th centuries primarily in the Italian peninsula led to a new cultural and artistic climate, which would become known as the Renaissance. The visual language of painting changed, although in its early proto-Renaissance phase one can still see much of the traditional Eastern Roman icon paintings that developed new aesthetic properties only slowly.

The Renaissance artists eventually abandoned many elements that characterized this traditional type of painting, such as the inverse perspective, golden backgrounds and aureoles, or the traditional stylized facial features with which saints were depicted.

Instead, they would use linear perspective, creating an illusion of deep, three-dimensional space in which the depicted figures modeled to resemble three-dimensional shapes are situated, often painted after living models. The result was a different type of painting, which contextualized Christian religious narratives and religious art in a new way.

It became clear that from the period of the High Renaissance, the mainstream tendencies in religious art in the West were taking a different course compared to traditional icon painting. This was indicative of a bigger political, cultural and religious gap widening between the "Greek East" and the "Latin West". The contrast between the "eastern" icons and modern religious art in the West received its classical expression in the words of Gregory Melissimos, a Greek participant at the council of Ferrara —39 , who claimed that he could not venerate the images of the saints depicted in Latin churches as he could not recognize them.

However, even in some of the most prominent manifestations of Renaissance and post-Renaissance Western European art, a careful observer will be able to see the influences of traditional icon painting. In spite of a powerful display of forms and colors that have been considered highly original and already announce the dynamism and the theatrical effects typical of the Baroque period , including a remarkably different treatment of the human body compared to traditional Christian art, the general compositional scheme follows earlier examples from the icon painting tradition depicting the same subject.

This artist from Crete had been trained in the traditional icon painting before he moved to Rome where he fell under the influence of Mannerism. His final destination was Toledo Spain , where he developed his unique style often considered one of the most important manifestation of Baroque painting in Spain. Both in their iconography and, more so, in their style, his mature paintings exhibit many traces of the logic of traditional icon-painting, including the elongated human figures, the stylized faces and the light effects that do not display chiaroscuro effects produced by a natural source of light.

The complex political and cultural developments — outlined in general terms above — led to the perception that the Medieval "Byzantine" style of icon painting was to be equated with the "Orthodox style". This produced a twofold effect. On the one hand, the Orthodox style was dismissed as buried in the past, a reflection of an essentially static tradition of Orthodoxy, incapable of embracing new cultural and stylistic developments. On the other hand, the "pre-modernity" or "non-modernity" of icons also became a source of inspiration and fascination as icon painting was perceived as a truer and more profound type of art, which was especially appealing to the Romanticist imagination.

However, as we have seen, the situation was much more complex. Stylistic influences of the art of the Eastern Empire were embraced in the West not only before the fall of Constantinople but also well after it especially in provinces , and elements of Byzantine painting were integrated into the art of Rome , Venice, Naples and other cultural centers, and into many manifestations of "Romanesque," "Gothic" and "Proto-Renaissance" art.

Icon painting in the traditionally Orthodox context was also not immune to new developments in the West. Despite its perception as an inherently conservative type of painting, the tradition of icon painting has been shaped by constant "reinventions", depending on a number of circumstances, such as cultural specificities, economic situation, availability of skilled painters, etc.

For instance, in the 14th century one can already discern important stylistic changes in traditional iconography. The painting of the so-called "decorative style" adorning the churches of late medieval Serbia, have been interpreted as exhibiting elements of "renaissance humanism" within the late Byzantine-style.

The absorption of the Baroque later also Rococo style in the Orthodox Church is also a well-known phenomenon. In 18th-century Russia, as well as in the territories under Austrian and Hungarian rule, many Orthodox Churches, their walls and iconostases, were decorated in styles and sometimes also iconographical features modeled on Western prototypes.

In addition to these, 19th- and early 20th-century church art absorbed elements and methods of romanticism, realism and symbolism, both in Russia and in other traditional Orthodox contexts. Many of these developments are routinely dismissed by more conservative Orthodox theological and church circles under the pretext that they represent a "Babylonian slavery" of Orthodox iconography under the Western artistic influences. However, one cannot deny that many of those paintings became liturgical art, and, as such, an organic part of the Orthodox tradition.

A productive exchange between modern "Western" art and traditional icon painting continued into the 20th century as traditional icons became a major source of inspiration for some of the most prominent avant-garde art movements. The topic of icons and modern art became the subject of more systematic academic explorations only recently.

The formal properties of traditional Russian icons, such as their quality of flatness, bright colors, inverse perspective, often simple and clear abstract geometrical forms, spoke to the imagination of modern artists.