Abstract
Abstract: It would not be an exaggeration to say that in the case of the Mother of God the spectrum of experience pulsates from the troubled-joyful news that she has been chosen to be an “enclosure of the God Whom nothing can enclose” (Akathist: Ikos 8), then through the joy of the birth and nurturing of the Infant to the sorrow and suffering of the Crucifixion, again replaced by joy after the Resurrection and Ascension of the Lord. The intentional states inherent in the Mother of God - in these two lines of symbolic interpretation between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection - are crucified between joy and suffering. To trace the dynamic between joy and suffering is to construct, in yet another way, her full image. These intentional states are dialogical in nature. They are not for-themselves, but always in the dynamics of the relationship with Jesus Christ. When it comes to the Theotokos' intentional states, there is always a hidden relationship to Christ in them, whether or not He is present (and how) in the image. There is no depiction of the Theotokos for its own sake - the name “Theotokos” rejects this option. I will try to show that joy - read through the image of the Mother of God - not only fully fits into the idea of an intentional state, but that it has a specific, double intentionality. Joy and the Mother of God are inseparably linked. This is her characteristic state, which seizes her intimate space (totally surrendered to the thought of God, living with-God and for-God). But it is also a state that theologically dissolves outward into a visionary space. The directions of conformity of the joy of the Theotokos are two-dimensional – “from the world to her” but also “from her to the world.” Anyone who touches this world also knows joy - for in touching her, he also touches the Savior. The article presents a semiotic and visual analysis of a corpus of selected icons from from various monasteries and publications on the topics. Keywords: Iconographic types of Theotokos, Akathist, joy as an intentional state, Eleoussa, Glykophiloussa, Pelagonitissa, Galaktotropkoussa.
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