In Defence of Icons: Saint John of Damascus and Stefan Javorskij

Abstract

The article compares the arguments in defence of images in The Stone of Faith by Metropolitan Stefan Javorskij (1658-1722), a prominent Russian prelate of the late 17th-early 18th century, and in the Apologetic Treatises Against Those Who Calumniate the Divine Images (Apologies), by St. John of Damascus (675?-ca. 754) to see how the work of St. John of Damascus, an 8th-century theologian, was used almost exactly one thousand years later in the Orthodox-Protestant polemics. The Stone of Faith by Stefan Javorskij was written as a reaction to the Protestant influences challenging Russia during the reign of Peter the First (1672-1725). In some places Javorskij inserted large passages from the Apologies indicating a reference; in others he borrowed the argument expressing it in his own manner. The scope of this study will be limited to an attempt to highlight to what extent the response of Stefan Javorskij is similar to the theological methods of St. John of Damascus. The difference of the two approaches indicates the extent to which the Orthodox theology changed over the centuries.