Holy Icons Research Articles

The analysis of Licheń's Holy Icon as a case study in semiotic fortition

Through a team fieldwork study that entailed participant observation and creating a database of visual images (September 2010), this study seeks an understanding of semiotic fortition as a natural process. Natural semiotic processes are conceptualized here following the tenets of Natural Linguistics (e.g., Stampe 1979[1973]; Dziubalska-Kołaczyk 2002). Of particular relevance as a research category is the dyad of lenitions (the processes serving the demands of the speaker/sender of the message) and fortitions (those serving the listener/the receiver). We claim that these are in fact semiotic categories (perceptually based) and transpose them in the study of semiotic boundaries as a dynamic event (e.g., Newman 2003; Lotman 1973 [1970]). The fortitive processes are studied as a case study of the Holy Icon of Our Lady of Licheń, Sorrowful Queen of Poland (Matka Boska Licheńska Bolesna Królowa Polski), which is kept in one of the currently most important Catholic pilgrimage centers in Poland. In conclusion, analytic results are substantiated by perceptual saliency tests on the most popular Marian representations, administered to 113 university students.

The Dormition of the Virgin Mary on the Island of Tinos: A Performance of Gendered Values in Greece

On the Greek island of Tinos, the Dormition of the Virgin Mary is celebrated on 15 August. This death, fertility, and healing festival is important for several reasons: the church of the “Annunciation” owes its fame to a miraculous holy icon; the miracles worked by this icon have made Tinos a centre of pan‐Orthodox worship; and pilgrimages are particularly made to the shrine during the Dormition. The celebration is also an important ideological festival for the Greek nation‐state, as illustrated through several ceremonies, particularly the procession when the icon is carried from the church to the harbour. The date 15 August is a special one for Hellenism; it combines religion with patriotism, and the Dormition is a profound social event. There are several meanings and values connected to the festival — female and male, popular and official — the pilgrimage site on Tinos presents an interrelationship of history, ritual, and gender.

“Images of God and friends of God”: The holy icon as document

AbstractInformation studies, from origins in the field of documentation, has long been concerned with the question, What is a document? The purpose of this study is to examine Christian icons—typically tempera paintings on wooden panels—as information objects, as documents: documents that obtain meaning through tradition and standardization, documents around which a sophisticated scaffolding of classification and categorization has developed, documents that highlight their own materiality. Theological arguments that associate the icon with the Incarnation are juxtaposed with theories on the materiality of the document and “information as thing.” Icons are examined as visual and multimedia documents: all icons are graphic; many also incorporate textual information. Icons emerge as a complex information resource: a resource—with origins in the earliest years of Christianity—that developed over centuries with accompanying systems of standardization and classification, a resource at the center of theological and political differences that shook empires, a primarily visual resource within a theological framework that affords the visual equal status with the textual, a resource with enduring relevance to hundreds of millions of Christians, a resource that continues to evolve as ancient and modern icons take on new material forms made possible through digital technologies. And crist was all, by reason as I preve,Firste a prophete by holy informacion,And by his doctryne, most worthy of byleve.—John Lydgate. Life of Our Lady. IV. II. 309–311We confess and proclaim our salvation in word and images.—Kontakion of the Sunday of Orthodoxy

The Origins of a Miraculous Image: Notes on the Annunciation Fresco in SS. Annunziata in Florence

IN CONNECTION WITH the recent interest in the early modern cult image within the discipline of art history there have been considerable debates and confusion on how to treat the image, which was, o...

The Ritual Year of the Icon of the Annunciation on the Island of Tinos, Greece

After several mystical visions of the nun, Pelagia, the holy icon of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin (Panagia) was found in 1823. According to tradition, Pelagia repeatedly witnessed the Panagia in her visions where she received orders from her to find the Virgin's icon and also to build her church. The icon was unearthed in the field where it had remained since the church, built on the ruins of a pagan temple, was destroyed in the 10th century. Two years before the icon was found, the Greek War of Independence broke out. The finding of the icon, the construction of the Church of the Panagia, Euangelistria, the enormous crowds of pilgrims and all the miracles worked by the icon, con- tributed to the outcome that the island was declared a sacred island, and Pelagia became sanctified. The ritual year of the miraculous icon on Tinos starts on 30 January with the festival dedicated to the Finding of the Icon. The next festival is dedicated to the Day of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary. This day has both a religious and a national ideological significance, since 25 March is celebrated as Independence Day. July 23 is dedicated to the Vision of Saint Pelagia. The most important festival, the Dormition of the Panagia, is celebrated on 15 August. During the festivals official processions, carrying the icon in its midst, are important, but also popular customs related to the importance of fetching holy water and earth as well as the other symbols which have a long tradition within Greek religions. Accordingly, the article aims to present the ritual year of the miraculous icon on Tinos, thus exploring the relation between official and popular religion. Since several of the rituals and symbols recur across many religious groupings in the Middle East and Mediterranean, they might be studied from a comparative perspective, thus transcending European heritages: liberating the ethnological imagination. 1

The Plot to Kill God: Findings from the Soviet Experiment in Secularization (review)

Reviewed by: The Plot to Kill God: Findings from the Soviet Experiment in Secularization Shoshana Keller The Plot to Kill God: Findings from the Soviet Experiment in Secularization. By Paul Froese. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008. 264 pp. $55.00 (cloth); $21.95 (paper). Sociologists rarely get an opportunity to test their theories in the field, and Paul Froese of Baylor University wryly comments, "I expect this is a welcome blessing for most of the population" (p. 38). The rise and fall of that great sociopolitical experiment known as the Soviet Union does provide a venue for such testing, in which Froese applies sociological theories of religion to what he calls the "Soviet Secularization Experiment" to see how well they hold up. The results for the theories are mixed, although this approach does provide some valuable insights into how the religious landscape of the USSR developed. It also raises serious questions, at least in the mind of this historian, about the limits of theoretical modeling for understanding specific societies. The book examines six assertions about the relationship between religion and society: modern scientific knowledge undermines religious belief (Karl Marx); rituals are powerful because of the "collective effervescence" they generate, not because they really connect with the supernatural (Emile Durkheim); religious participation is based on rational calculations of social and/or otherworldly reward (Max Weber; Rodney Starke and Roger Finke); religion is dependent on state support and can be determined by the state (Lev Trotsky); and religious institutions are subject to market forces (Adam Smith). Froese tests these assertions through a chronological survey of Soviet efforts to make the entire population of the former Russian Empire scientific atheists or, when that failed early on, to disrupt the supply of religious institutions and the demand for them. He concludes with a brief chapter on the post-Soviet situation and a meditation on the apparent inseparability of politics and religion. The USSR contained dozens of religions and hundreds of sects. Froese, who draws on mostly English-language secondary sources for his data, confines his analysis to various forms of Christianity and to Central [End Page 544] Asian Islam, on which there has been a recent spate of publishing. Two central points of comparison in the study are the respective fates of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), predominant in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, and the Roman Catholic Church, predominant in Lithuania. The Bolsheviks aimed their fiercest assaults against the ROC, which was their rival not so much for political legitimacy as for fundamental beliefs about the nature of the world and humanity. Within weeks of seizing power in October 1917, Vladimir Lenin stripped the church of all state political and financial support. The Communist Party's Union of Militant Godless conducted enthusiastic antireligious propaganda, based on the premise that teaching basic science and demonstrating that faith in God, saints, and miraculous icons was illusory would be sufficient to destroy Orthodoxy. Simultaneously, the party built up an alternate body of "scientific atheist" ritual ("Octoberings" in place of christenings, public processions with red banners and portraits of the leaders in place of holy icons) and belief about the ultimate future of humanity. These actions directly implemented the theories of Trotsky, Marx, and Durkheim. By the late 1920s it became clear that destroying religion was not so easy. The central factor in the turn to open violence was the ascent of Joseph Stalin, who subordinated the entire revolution to his economic program and need for absolute obedience. Over the next ten years the Soviet state imprisoned and murdered thousands of priests, monks, and nuns; burned icons; and seized church buildings and valuables. The government imposed heavy social and economic penalties on churchgoers, everything from job loss to public humiliation, imprisonment, or death. The supply of and demand for Orthodox education for children all but disappeared, as parents would not endanger their children's futures by seeking out the few teachers who survived. A rational actor, assessing the social rewards of participation in the ROC, could only conclude that there were none. Despite the combination of persuasion and violence, the party failed to destroy either the ROC as an institution or popular belief in its tenets. Indeed...

Material Aspects of Icons. A Review on Physicochemical Studies of Greek Icons

Holy icons created in the Byzantine era are a vital entity in Orthodox Christianity, a living tradition unbroken over more than 1500 years. The importance of these symbolic representations has inspired interdisciplinary studies to better understand the materials and process of their construction. Researchers from a variety of fields are working together to place icons in their proper historical and cultural framework, as well as to develop long-term conservation strategies. In this Account, we review very recent analytical results of the materials and painting methods used in the production of Byzantine iconography. The care of icons requires particular attention because of their function; icons are objects of veneration and, for the most part, still stand in today's churches to serve ritual practices. Accordingly, they are affected by random, fluctuating environmental conditions aggravated by public access. Because of the holiness of the icons, the typical tradition of the church is to periodically restore the depicted scenes, either by retouching any defects or by partial or complete overpainting. These interventions greatly increase the complexity of the paint stratigraphy. To reveal the extent and quality of the original painting under several historical overpaintings or dirt overlays on the icon, researchers usually pursue a manifold approach, combining complementary multispectral imaging and spectroscopic techniques nondestructively. Unfortunately, a visual and exhaustive spectroscopic examination of a minimum number of cross-sectional microsamples is almost always necessary to clarify the structure of the paint layers and map the constituent materials identified therein. A full understanding of these details is critical for assessing the painting methods, stylistic conventions, and compositional concepts that render the different iconographic details. Cross-sectional micro-Raman spectroscopy, although time-consuming, now affords the direct identification of the distinct grains of almost all of the inorganic pigments and inert components included in the paint layers. Micro-Raman studies are complemented and cross-checked by micro-FTIR and scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) studies. This approach is essential in documenting the evolution of the materials and techniques used in creating icons over the centuries. Analytical data on Greek icons are now available for comparison with similar results from other important schools of iconography, such as in the eastern Mediterranean, the Balkans, or Russia, or, further, with Western schools of painting. The research constitutes a reference base for identifying and solving analytical problems, such as those related to the organic materials found in icons that have not yet been systematically studied. Moreover, the results on icons are also generally applicable to important analytical issues encountered in studying any multilayered paint stratigraphies.

The Orthodox Church: an introduction to its history, doctrine, and spiritual culture

Preface. List of Illustrations. List of Abbreviations. Note on Sources. Introduction: Strange Encounters. 1 The Pilgrimage of the Orthodox through History . A Brief History of the Orthodox from the Apostolic Era to the Middle Ages. Perspectives of History. Earliest Christian Foundations. The Development of Ecclesiastical Centres. The Age of the Fathers. Creeds and Councils. East and West: The Parting of Ways. The Slavic Mission. The Organization of the Orthodox Churches from Medieval to Modern Times. The Extension of the Orthodox Church. Synopsis of the Organization of the Orthodox Churches. The Ancient Patriarchates. The Orthodox Church of Cyprus. The Church of Sinai. The Russian Orthodox Church (Patriarchate of Moscow). The Wider Russian Heritage. The Orthodox Church of Greece. The Patriarchal Church of Bulgaria. The Patriarchal Church of Serbia. The Patriarchal Church of Romania. The Church of Georgia. The Church of Poland. The Church of Albania. The Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia. The Three Autonomous Orthodox Churches. The Various Orthodox Diaspora Communities. The Orthodox Church in America. 2 The Orthodox Sense of Tradition . The Holy Tradition. Sources of Authority in Orthodoxy. Orthodoxy's Reading of the Scriptures. An Ecclesial Reading. The Principle of Consonance. The Principle of Authority. The Principle of Utility. Patristic and Conciliar Authorities. The Symbolical Books. The Pedalion (Holy Canons). Tradition and Revelation. 3 The Doctrine of the Orthodox Church. I: The Glory of the Lord . The Christian God. The Holy Spirit. The Lord Jesus. The Immortal Father. The Holy Trinity. 4 The Doctrine of the Orthodox Church. II: The Economy of Salvation . Humanity and its Sufferings. Salvation and the Call to Ascent. The Song of Creation. The Blessed Theotokos: Joy of All Creation. The Dance of the Blessed: The Angels and the Saints. Outside the Gates: Demonology and the Enigma of Evil. The Church: Bride of the Lamb. 5 The Holy Mysteries and Liturgies . Greater and Lesser Mysteries:. The Mystery of Baptism. The Mystery of Chrismation. The Mystical Supper: Communion in the Holy Eucharist. The Eucharistic Liturgy. The Mystery of Metanoia. The Mystery of the Great Anointing. The Mystery of Marriage. The Mysteries of Ordination. The Lesser Blessings of the Church. The Services of Prayer. The Trisagion Prayers. The Daily Offices. Personal Prayers. Traditions of Orthodox Prayer and Spirituality. Methods of Prayer. The Prayer of the Heart. The Jesus Prayer. Hesychasm. Fasting and Feasting. The Holy Icons: Doors to the Kingdom. Sacred Art. The Orthodox Vocabulary of Worship. Icons and Iconoclasm. Icons of the Lord. Icons of the Virgin. Icons of the Saints. 6 'The God-Beloved Emperor': Orthodoxy's Political Imagination . Caesaro-Papist Caricatures. Byzantine Models of Godly Rule. The Ambiguity of Scriptural Paradigms of Power. The Concept of the Priestly King. Dominion as an Apostolic Charism. Patristic Ideas on Symphonia. New Polities in the Aftermath of Byzantium. 7 Orthodoxy and the Contemporary World . The Poor at the Rich Man's Gate. The Grace of Peace and the Curse of War. Freedom in an Unfree World. A New Status for Women. Biological and Other New Ethical Environments. Sexual Ethics and Pastoral Care. Ecumenism and the Reconciliation of the Churches. Religious Pluralism in the Global Village. Evangelism in a New Millennium. Glossary of Orthodox Terminology. Select Bibliography. Index

L’iconophagie byzantine : aspects du ritual eucharistique dans le christianisme oriental

In a letter of Louis le Pieux, dated 842, Emperor Michel II is accusing the “iconophils” to confuse during the Eucharistic rite the holy images with the consecrated substances of bread and wine, by blending the “body and blood of Christ” with ink dust which was scraped off the holy icons and then offered to the believers. By doing this, the “iconophils” attributed to the icon the virtues of the consecrated bread and wine, thus rendering the mysterium of transubstantiation more comprehensible. Besides the icon dust, other substances also enter the Eucharist celebration, such as vinegar, honey, grapes and even meat, which led, of course, to an increasing entanglement of sacred and profane food. These practices of superstitious and biblical origins are questioning the link between the incarnation and the act of eating by a series of gestures, like scraping, blending, distributing, swallowing and finally receiving communion. In other words, these practices represent an alternative theology of Eucharist which ...

The "Dialogue of the Monk and Recluse Moschos concerning the Holy Icons", An Early Iconophile Text

The "Dialogue of the Monk and Recluse Moschos concerning the Holy Icons", An Early Iconophile Text

The Holy Icon as an Asset

The Holy Icon as an Asset

About the Moscow Riot, an Unfinished Eyewitness Account

The night of the 15th to the 16th of September1 a fight broke out at the Varvarskie Gates of Kitai-gorod because Amvrosii,2 archbishop of Moscow and Kaluga, had sent thither to seal the money chest, in order that it not be stolen; the fight was in the 9th hour after midday, and in the 11th they came to the Kremlin, pillaged the archbishop's house that is in the Chudov Monastery. In that house tonsured tsars had lived. The archbishop drove off to the Don Monastery: the pillage continued all night and the following day till the 7th hour after midday. This day, the 16th of September in the morning, a party of rioters set out to find the archbishop and to open the quarantine houses and release the convicts held in the jail of the Investigatory Bureau. Those who entered the monastery beat and interrogated many, asking whether the archbishop was there; they found him, he had been making his confession and, taking Holy Communion, celebrated the mass. After which he dressed himself in a gray muzhik's caftan and hid himself in the church behind the iconostasis in the choir loft. From there the miscreants dragged him out, yet at his request they allowed him to kiss the icons. Then, having dragged him into the courtyard, one miscreant struck him in the back with a stake, from which he sat down, but suddenly the others cried out: "Do not beat him in the monastery so that the holy place not be defiled with his blood." And so they hustled him behind the monastery, where the leaders—one assessor, the other a servant of Mr. Raevskii3—struck him with stakes on the head, and the others started beating him; they pierced the eyes, cut up the face, tore out the beard, stabbed the chest, broke the bones. In a word, all his body was one wound. Meanwhile in the Kremlin the breakage and pillage in the Chudov Monastery continued: the windows were all broken out, the paintings were ripped, the furniture was all broken and torn; the library,4 consisting of selected church books and others that relate to all sorts of sciences and arts, in different languages, and of rare manuscript books, everything was utterly destroyed and pillaged; in the stables the coaches and carriages were broken to pieces. And when the monastery servants said to them, the brigands, that those [conveyances] were not the archbishop's but the miraclemakers', then the brigands answered them that miraclemakers do not ride in them. In the chapel the holy icons were ripped, all the metal icon-covers were pillaged; the gospel was left on the altar, but the Books of the Apostles were torn off and carried away, the communion cloth was torn up, all the vessels were pillaged, the painted icons were defaced by piercing the eyes. They got into the cellar, and finally to the winestores and storerooms in the monastery that belong to the merchant Ptitsin. At that time all the streets were filled with people running home with plunder, some with drink, some with books, some with clothes, some even with fine leather; 5 vodkas6 from French wine were then for sale by the rioters for ten, twenty, and thirty [kopecks]; Hungarian champagne for the same price; English beer for five. Inside and outside the monastery they broke open barrels of wine, dipping it out with hats and caps. They ravaged the consistory, plundered the monastery servants and removed all the property; they got into the brothers' cells, yet their incursion was in vain. Along the streets the rioters went in parties and teams, openly and fearlessly cursing the archbishop, inciting every sort of rabble, threatening the officers and all townspeople loyal to their fatherland. They emptied the Danilov quarantine, they were about to advance on the other quarantines, and on the jail too, but from there they were driven off.