Veneration Of Icons Research Articles

Theology of the Icon in Hymnographic Form: A Kanon and Four Stichera for the Second Council of Nicaea Attributed to (Theodore?) Stoudites

This article is dedicated to a kanon and four stichera for the Second Council of Nicaea (787), attributed by codex Vind. theol. gr. 187 (c. an. 1500) to (Theodoros?) Stoudites. Although these hymnographic texts were published for the first time in 1992—on the basis of the Viennese codex, alongside a Church Slavonic translation of earlier date than this Greek witness—, they have attracted scarcely any attention in the scholarship on Theodore the Stoudite. The present article offers a new edition of the texts, based, in addition to Vind. theol. gr. 187, on two other Greek manuscript witnesses. The edition is accompanied by an English translation and by an analysis of the hymns’ particularities of content and form, with a special focus on their theological and philosophical concepts regarding the veneration of icons, and on the question of their authorship.

Синтез слова і зображення в сакральному мистецтві

The problems of synthesis of religious art and literature in medieval culture are considered in the article. The nature of interactions of the artistic material and its text basis is investigated. Historical lore and the descriptions of the eyewitnesses of the Jesus Christ, the Mother of God, Apostles have been of a great significance at the early stages of icon painting images development. The period of iconography formation on the base of the evidences, memories and sacred texts has lasted till the 8th century. Gradually the icon is transformed into a peculiar sacred matrix, independent cult object, where the problem of historical similarity is replaced by reality, determined by the consent of Christian community. The necessity of comprehension with the help of faith and mind of what is reproduced by the sacred images – their spiritual, true idea – appears in the foreground. Starting from the 17th century Ukrainian masters gain knowledge of iconographic canons, technique of icon painting, theological admonitions and precepts from Herminia – a special reference book-teaching aid for the painters. The image of a certain saint, especially the physiognomic features, is described in them by words. Several descriptions of the saints’ appearance in their lifetime are also known. These are in particular the images of Saint Nicholas, kept in ancient synaxaria. According to the dogma on veneration of icons (adopted by the Second Council of Nicaea in 787), the inscription of the saint name is an integral attribute of the icon painting. It determines sameness between the image and its prototype. Inscriptions, signatures and accompanying texts are introduced consistently into ancient easel works, wall paintings and miniatures. The images of saints are applied to the faithful, showing them the opened books, unfolded scrolls. In the Old Ruthenian art the classical thematic structure of the saints’ life cycles, basing on the Byzantine hagiography, has been supplemented with plots of the actions of Kyiv recording. Sometimes in Ukrainian monuments the inscriptions are placed near the image, on the icon’s background. These are the so-called supplementary texts. The plots of the living icons have been connected with the written sources. The synthesis of written sources and artistic material is the most evident in the book miniature. Observation of convergence of the visual material and literature shows, that the experience of various arts isn’t transferred mechanically on the surface foreign for them, but is changed, transformed, adopted by art, which has perceived it and at the same time crystallizes the peculiarity of each of them.

A Hidden Agenda of Imperial Appropriation and Power Play? Iconological Considerations Concerning Apse Images and Their Role in the Iconoclast Controversy

Abstract According to the written sources, the Iconoclast controversy was all about the veneration of icons. It started in the late seventh century, after most iconodule provinces had been lost to Byzantine rule, and lasted until the turn of the millennium or so, when icon veneration became generally established in the remaining parts of the Byzantine Empire. However, as far as material evidence and actual images are concerned, the Iconoclast controversy centred on apse images and other, equally large and monumental representations, none of which were ever venerated. Prior to Iconoclasm, such images had not been customary at Constantinople, where the early Christian tradition had been largely aniconic and focused on the symbol of the cross. Thus, the introduction of monumental Christian imagery to Constantinople appears to have been a major aspect of the Iconoclast controversy. This paper asks why and finds that the images in question, whilst not for veneration and therefore not essential to the theological debate, stood out for imperial propaganda. They led to close visual integration of the emperor and the church that had previously been kept apart, because aniconic traditions used to limit imperial presence inside Constantinopolitan church buildings. It seems, then, that the Iconoclast controversy, although conducted in religious terms, was partly driven by a hidden agenda of imperial appropriation and power play.

The Cultural Biography of a Pilgrimage Token: From Hagiographical to Archaeological Evidence

Abstract Across the eastern Mediterranean, the personnel of late antique pilgrimage sites distributed terracotta tokens stamped with depictions of saints, scenes from the life of Christ, and related imagery. Using primarily hagiographical sources, scholars associate tokens with healing practices, the veneration of icons, and the worship of relics. Certainly, hagiographies offer valuable representations of ritual processes, but they also make claims on the proper distribution, meaning, and use of tokens amidst a diversity of intercessory activities. How, in practice, was a token produced and distributed? How did pilgrims use tokens at and away from pilgrimage complexes beyond the assertions made by hagiographers? This article answers these questions by tracing the “cultural biography” of a token. It analyzes the archaeological contexts of tokens in order to clarify select statuses that a token might occupy during its lifetime, including commodity, gift, domestic object, funerary object, relic, rubbish, and art object. This approach lays the foundation for examining hagiographical claims regarding the use of tokens as one among many assertions in the contested process of harnessing the power of saints. It illustrates the capacity of devotees to exhibit diverse practices as well as the efforts of personnel at pilgrimage sites to shape those practices.

EVENTS RELATED TO THE RENEWAL OF THE ICON IN THE PARISH LIFE OF THE VEPSIANS OF SHIMOZERYE (BY THE MATERIALS OF THE MANUSCRIPTS OF K. A. SILAKOV)

The article raises an almost unexplored question - the veneration of icons in the traditional culture of the Vepsian people, which is considered on the basis of a unique archival source - K. A. Silakov's manuscripts about the pre-revolutionary life of the Vepsian Shimozero. In 1958-1959, due to extreme socio-economic conditions caused by the regional authorities, residents of the Shimozero region were forced to leave their homeland in the Vytegorsky district of the Vologda region and move to other places. This migration, which went down in the history of the Vepsian people as the tragedy of Shimozero, aroused a constant interest in this disappeared group. In connection with this situation, the introduction of K. A. Silakov's manuscripts into scientific circulation becomes particularly relevant. Silakov's presentation of manuscripts in the form of stories, their names and content allow us to refer them to the type of literature that is called “naive literature”in science. When analyzing such texts, it is important to determine the reliability of the available facts, as well as the research approach to them, depending on the purpose of the study. The purpose of the article is to consider the events described in the manuscript of the parish life of the Shimozero Veps of the late 19 - early 20 centuries, related to the renewal of the icon of the mother of God in the context of historical and ethnographic information, in order to fully cover this little-known topic and correct some points distorted by the author. As shown by contextual analysis of narratives, they capture real events and people, which, however, are evaluated by the author in the spirit of Soviet ideology, which, of course, influenced the reliable description of the events in Shimozero conceived by him. Nevertheless, the consideration of narratives in the context and in combination with archival documents and published data showed the productivity of studying “naive literature” on historical and ethnographic topics, significantly expanding the knowledge about the veneration of icons in Veps villages and especially the population of Shimozero.

HERETICAL MOVEMENTS: THE FIRST INCENTIVE FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF RUSSIAN THEOLOGY OF THE ICON ITSELF AND RUSSIAN POLEMICAL LITERATURE

This article is devoted to the analysis of the influence that the emergence of heretical movements had on the development of Russian theology of the icon. The theological idea of icon painting appeared in Russia only in the 16th century and its beginning was connected precisely with the spread of heretical movements - Strigolniki and “Judaizers”, who rejected icon veneration. The polemic with heretics, expressed in the epistles of St. Joseph of Volotsk, helped to develop new aspects of the theology of the icon, especially since regardless of some terminological and factographic errors, St. Joseph defended not only the veneration of icons in itself, but also began to justify the specific iconic plot, which was the Old Testament Holy Trinity.

Religious Freedom in Modern Russia by Poole Randall A. (review)

SEER, 98, 2, APRIL 2020 372 ‘distinguished past from present’ — ‘what was acceptable in the sixteenth century was not acceptable today’ (p. 42). He may have accepted that Ivan IV’s centralization of Muscovy was progressive and therefore the bloodletting ‘necessary historically’, but this did not ‘justify it morally — not in the past and not in the present’ (p. 42). Strengthening Muscovy and defeating its enemies was a profound achievement, but at what cost? The violence of Ivan’s reign, and Stalin’s, could not ultimately be justified historically. Ivan the Terrible was Eizenshtein’s grand endeavour to ‘dissect totalizing power as immoral and inevitable’ (p. 239), inevitable it would seem in ‘authoritarian societies’, be it Ivan’s Muscovy or Stalin’s Soviet Union. By asking the viewer ‘“Am I right in what I am doing”?’, Eizenshtein’s Ivan ‘gives us the kind of individual moral accounting that we need in order to understand a society […] of “permanent moral compromise”’ (p. 346). Neuberger’s account of the making of Ivan the Terrible contributes significantly to our understanding of what constitutes Stalinist civilization. Department of History Steven A. Usitalo Northern State University, Aberdeen, SD Poole, Randall A. and Werth, Paul W. (eds). Religious Freedom in Modern Russia. Russian and East European Studies. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA, 2018. 314 pp. Illustrations. Tables. Notes. Index. $50.00. How did subjects of the Russian Empire define ‘religious freedom’ and particularly ‘freedom of conscience’? Religious Freedom in Modern Russia — an anthology with eight contributions — continues the discussion begun in the 2012 forum on freedom of conscience in the journal Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History (vol. 13, no. 3), which, editor Randall A. Poole states, ‘served as the foundation’ for this volume (p. 8). In fact, two of the original articles of that forum, by G. M. Hamburg and Victoria Frede, are reprinted here. The six new chapters redirect the discussion so that ‘[t]he focus of this volume is not religious policy […] but rather the various meanings that religious freedom, toleration, and indeed freedom of conscience had in Russia among nonstate actors’ (pp. 7–8). This new focus yields a remarkably coherent anthology that reveals the intellectual and philosophical vitality around a concept that was contested and, at its core, Poole argues, ‘incompatible with autocracy’ (p. 42). The first two chapters provide thoughtful introductions to the intellectual history of tolerance and the concept of freedom of conscience. Hamburg’s REVIEWS 373 essay (chapter 2) traces the evolution of views on toleration from Muscovite and Polish-Lithuanian sixteenth-century texts through Decembrist manifestos, highlighting ‘the impact of the European Enlightenment’ (p. 45) on the Russian thinkers. Hamburg finds an inherent tension throughout between promoting greater toleration and proposing limits. Poole’s chapter one serves double duty asanintroductiontothevolumeandasascholarlycontributioninitsownright. He ties the development of the concept of ‘freedom of conscience’ in Russia to the religious revival over the long nineteenth century — renewed hesychasm and monasticism, the veneration of icons, and the pastoral movement of parish priests — that ‘provided the experiential basis and then the philosophical articulation of freedom conscience’ (p. 43). The inherent tension here was with autocracy itself, which was ‘inimical’ to the concept and ‘continued to resist it’ (p. 43). Chapters by Patrick Lally Michelson and Victoria Frede reveal that in the early 1860s, neither clerical nor revolutionary intellectuals promoted ‘freedom of conscience’ in the modern sense of the term. Michelson deftly traces the ecclesiastical genealogy of the concept as it was understood by Orthodox churchmen, culminating in the first use of the term by an ecclesiastical scholar, Archimandrite Ioann (Sokolov) in 1864–65. For Ioann, ‘freedom of conscience’ meant choosing with free will devotion to Christ as the source of salvation, and he condemned any coercion in faith (p. 99). Turning to the early revolutionaries in the organization Land and Freedom in 1861–64, Frede argues ‘they found they could only promote freedom of confession, not freedom of conscience, worrying that they would alienate potential supporters’ (p. 106). The revolutionaries themselves embraced the liberal concept, but they understood the tensions against it in Russian society, particularly among the peasants. Two chapters explore perspectives from outside the Russian core of the empire...

Christine Chaillot, The Role of Images and the Veneration of Icons in the Oriental Orthodox Churches: Syrian Orthodox, Armenian, Coptic and Ethiopian Traditions

Review

Богородичная тема в творчестве Пахомия Серба

A comprehensive survey of works composed by Pachomius the Serb shows that the hagiographer gave much attention to the topic of the veneration of the Mother of God but was far from addressing it in all of his texts. The article examines the rendering of this topic in the works written by Pachomius in the 1430s—1460s: the Life of Sergius of Radonezh, the cycle of texts devoted to the Novgorodian icon of the Mother of God of the Sign (“Znamenie”), the Life and Service of Cyril of Beloozero, the Life of Euthymius of Novgorod, and the Panegyric for the feast of the Intercession of the Theotokos (“Pokrov”). Episodes of apparition of the Virgin in Pachomius’s lives were probably determined by the existing tradition of veneration of particular saints: in the Life of Sergius of Radonezh the apparition becomes a sign of the Theotokos’s patronage over the monastery, while the Life of Cyril of Beloozero mostly reveals the function of the Mother of God as a guide “showing the Way”. In the “Znamensky” cycle, the Theotokos theme is at the core. The article qualifies the attribution of the texts and the time when this cycle was written. It also reveals special features of its novel, different from the previously existed, concept of the feast: a new role of the Theotokos and elaborated topic of the veneration of icons. The study shows that the Theotokos theme in Pachomius’s works is often connected with the Akathist Hymn and related texts. It is suggested that the Mount Athos oral story tradition might have influence on these texts.

Smashing the icon of Black Lives Matter: afropessimism & religious iconolatry

ABSTRACTThis article seeks to intervene in the critical conversations surrounding Black Lives Matter (BLM) to urge scholars to challenge the very political calculus from which we (dis)count lives and ascribe value or matter as a mechanism of anti-Black power. I argue that we must abandon the axiological framework of the Human, by situating the Human as the centerpiece of rituals of anti-Blackness that occur in the most basic of social interactions. We must center the ritual of iconolatry, the creation and extreme veneration of icons, in order to understand how BLM has become an icon of resistance that is deployed in service of the anti-Black status quo. I end with the gesture towards an alternative praxis of Black Iconoclasm that ritually enacts a shattering of various icons of Humanism in favor of what Christina Sharpe calls the hold.

The Byzantine Politics of Byzantine Mysticism

The Byzantine Politics of Byzantine Mysticism

The Seventh Ecumenical Council and the veneration of icons in Orthodoxy

In the Orthodox Christian tradition, icons are not regarded as works of art; they are rather a visual gospel and windows into the spiritual realm. They are intended to assist believers to be more contemplative and prayerful. They guide believers into a life of prayer. There are, however, those who consider them to be idolatrous. Such a belief is erroneous, since the honouring of created beings does not detract from being totally devoted to the Creator in whose image they were created. Icons portraying God’s grace are sanctifying and help affirm the faith of Orthodox believers. Icons are a concrete theology that instructs and leads believers to a spiritual reality and ultimately sanctify them as they transform them. They ultimately serve as conduits to the healing of body and soul through the grace of God and are essentially a prelude to the final transfiguration of the world.

Boundless restraint: Performance, reparation, and the daily practice of death in the Life of Daniel the Stylite

This article explores how graphic imagery in the Life of Daniel the Stylite constructs a specular regime that operates performatively to convey particular attitudes toward death and the physical body’s integrity and boundaries. Unlike most vitae that traffic in images of pain and suffering, the gruesome fates depicted in this one are reserved not for Daniel, the holy protagonist, but for those who witness him. Triangulating the text of the Life with Patricia Miller’s work on ‘visceral seeing’ and ascetic performance and Melanie Klein’s psychoanalytic conception of subject formation, the essay argues that Daniel’s simultaneously mild and spectacular asceticism shifts the burden of performance onto his viewers and readers, depicting and scripting an imperative that all of Daniel’s audience members effect a reparative position in order to conquer anxieties about death and dissolution. Through a constant shuttling back-and-forth between what Klein would call the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions (as executed by Daniel’s performance), we are best able to see how Daniel’s Life speaks to early Christological debates and concerns over the nature and veneration of icons.

Konstantinápolyi Szent Lázár, a képrombolás vértanúja

Information on the life of Saint Lazarus was collected by the scribe who continued the Chronicle of Theophanes. It was also elaborated by Kedrenos. He was born in Armenia and came to byzantium at a young age to become a painter and monk. In 832 Theophilus order the destruction of icons. To persuade Lazarus, he summoned him. The tortures of the painter were put an end to by Empress Theodora. In gratitude to her, he painted an icon of St John the Baptist which worked miracles after Theophilus' death, and then he painted a large icon of Christ. Emperor of Byzantium Michael III sent him to Rome in 856 to the newly elected Pope Benedict III to discuss the possibility of reconciliation between the two churches and restore unity. An uncertain source mentions his death during another mission to Rome in 867. He is allegedly buried in Galata in the monastery of Evanderes. His cult in the Roman church was actualized by the “iconoclasm” of the Protestants. The council of Trent – similarly to the second Council of Nicea earlier – decided in favour of the veneration of icons. The finest specimens of St Lazarus's iconography were produced by the noted copperplate engraving workshops of Augsburg. The illustration dating from 1753 of the Life of Saints by Joseph Giulini was popular all over Europe. In the engraving by Christian Halbauer made after Johann Wolfgang Baumgartner of the episode of Lazarus' arrest Christ on the cross can also be seen. The most important depiction shows the sainted monastic painter in a baroque atelier, working on his painting of St John the Baptist in the monastery of Phoberon. The hagiographic series of Annus dierum Sanctorum was sold in a volume already in the age of its creation, between 1737 and 1742. The indispensable series for the research of baroque iconography was the outcome of the joint endeavour of Gottfried Bernard Göz, Joseph Sebastian and Johann Baptist Klauber in Augsburg. Among the historicizing painters of the 19th century, Domenico Morelli depicted the four monks persecuted by Emperor Theophilus in bright colours in 1855, with the icon of St John the Baptism hanging behind the four condemned monks.

'Remembering God' through Religious Habits: The Daily Religious Practices of Evacuee Karelian Orthodox Women

Habitual religiosity, i.e. the buildup and maintenance of religious habits, hinges on the embodied dimensions of religious memory. The processes involved can be conceptualised using Pierre Bourdieu’s theory on the habitus and Paul Connerton’s outline of the dynamics of habit-memory and habits. With the help of these theoretical tools, I analyse interview material concerning the daily religious practicesof evacuee Karelian Orthodox women, focusing specifically on three basic customs: making the sign of the cross, prayer, and the veneration of icons. These I investigate 1) as practices largely governed by the native layer of the women’s habitus; 2) as habits that continue to structure the habitus; 3) as habits incorporating cultural content; and 4) as customs influenced by the cumulative weight of the women’s habit-memory. The discussion offers a view of evacuee Karelian Orthodox women’s life-long investment in religion, and shows how in the perpetuation of this form of religiosity, small practices can bear great significance.

Chrystologiczna argumentacja w Mowach obronnych przeciw tym, którzy odrzucają święte obrazy Jana Damasceńskiego

In the face of the escalating Iconoclast heresy in the 8th century there appeared the necessity of establishing whether the veneration of icons is justifiable from the Christian viewpoint. The debate primarily concerned the Christological question of venerating Jesus Christ’s icons. St. John of Damascus (675–749) is considered to be one of the most outstanding defenders of sacred icons. We owe to him the first Catholic theology of the icon. His work, „The Defence speeches against those who reject sacred icons” constitutes the answer given to the iconoclasts. The most important argument justifying the veneration of icons is the mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God being the image of the invisible God. The incarnation which liberates one from idolatry lies at the root of a positive vision of matter. John of Damascus refers to the ancient Christian tradition of icon veneration recognizing the word and the image as its essential elements. His teaching would play a key role during the Council of Nicaea in 787.

Kult świętych w Prawosławiu

The article begins from explaining two key terms for the theme: the holiness and the the concept of theosis. In the first and second paragraph author makes general remarks on what is the sanctity of God and sanctity of the Church. Only after that it is explained what was the meaning of the word “saint” used in the Old Testament and similarities and differences of the meaning of this term in the New Testament. The Church teaching of sanctity was précised in VII–VIII centuries only, when St. John Damascenes explained the differences between of worshiping God and venerating the saints. The author also explains differences between veneration of saints and the cult of pagan heroes, as well as between venerating saint and venerating angels. many observations are given from the Church Fathers as well as contemporary Orthodox theologians.In the third paragraph it was explained how the forming of the venerating saints of different categories was made i.e.: the martyrs, the apostles, the prophets, the ancestors (fathers, etc.), saint hierarchs of the Church, the venerable (the monastics), the right-believing, the witnesses, unmercenary physicians, the fool-for-Christ, the passion-bearers, the righteous (the just).The fourth paragraph gives short analysis of several main elements of the veneration of saints, as: the prayers to the saints, the intercession of the saints, the veneration of icons of the saints, the venerating of relics of the saints, the establishing of the feasts honoring the saints in the Church calendar, the liturgical feast for the memory of the saints, building of the churches honoring the saints, hymnography and hagiography to commemorate saints. The last paragraph of the article makes an explanation how the word “canonization” is understood on Orthodox Church and what is the procedure of canonizing saints in Orthodoxy is used.

Au-delà de l'image, Une archéologie du visuel au Moyen Age, Ve–XVIe siècle (review)

Reviewed by: Au-delà de l'image, Une archéologie du visuel au Moyen Age, Ve–XVIe siècle Mary Beth Ingham Olivier Boulnois . Au-delà de l'image, Une archéologie du visuel au Moyen Age, Ve–XVIe siècle. Paris: De Travaux/Seuil, 2008. Pp. 496 + 8 illustrations. Paper, €26.00. This study presents a history of the image: as central to truth and to the possibility of knowledge; in its relationship to the object; as representational mode of knowing; its inadequacy as medium; and as both revealing and concealing. Boulnois proceeds by means of multiple perspectives, linked historically in an archeology: an attempt to bring to light the sources and development of Western reflection upon the role of images. Less interested in providing answers than in re-framing contemporary reflection upon the role of visual images and art in human cognition, the author bases his study upon a compendium of texts and authors not often seen together in the same volume: philosophers, theologians, and artists. Together, [End Page 311] they uncover the continuity and discontinuity of development around the central role of visualization for human rationality. The volume concludes with an exhaustive bibliography and extensive indexes. Part I, "Fondations Anthropologiques," lays the groundwork for the study: from Augustine and Platonic theories of the image and its role, both in knowledge (the image as memory device) and in the link between the human and divine (the image as revelation). Tensions within both philosophical and theological uses of the image carry over into language, and the role of signs to evoke, refer, and create. As the study moves into medieval practices (Cassian, Benedict, Aelred of Rievaulx) and medieval architecture, we discover a hermeneutic of reality, a decoding of meaning, that belongs to a spiritual exercise. An exploration of the nature of this exercise (as mediation, representation, lectio divina) exposes the image as an active, dynamic "sign": language for the literate and graphic art (cathedrals) for the illiterate. Part II, "L'Économie du Visuel," traces the religious/spiritual role of the image. Here, the problematic dimension of the image is explored: the distinction of sensible and intelligible forms, the relationship of the image (as visible) to an invisible reality (the divine), visions and veneration of icons. The Dionysian tradition with Eriugena, the hermeneutic tradition with Hugh of St. Victor, the visions of Hildegard of Bingen: these examples reveal how medieval symbolism (unlike postmodernism) works to present the invisible through image understood as a contrary form that both affirms and denies. Chapter five, on the veneration of images, includes very good sections on Islamic thought and the role of icons, on attempts to affirm the superiority of auditory over visual experiences, and introduces the Libri carolini, a work that never influences medieval Latin thought, but will reappear with Calvin's reform. Part III, "L'Ordre des Images," moves more carefully in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, where issues of perspective, light, and representation inform consideration of the beatific vision. This metaphysics of perspective involves Islamic influences, Franciscan masters like Bonaventure, for whom the itinerarium is traced via images and beyond images, and like Aquinas, for whom cognitional stages define the different states of spiritual experience of the divine vision. This portion of the study concludes with the mysticism within the Dominican school (Meister Eckhart and Dietrich of Freiburg). God is no longer imaged in the soul's memory, intellect, and will (as Augustine held), but in the soul's apex mentis: beyond image, beyond symbol. Part IV, "L'Image sans Limites," explores the birth of the fine arts and the rupture of modern notions of aesthetics from the medieval understanding of the beautiful, which was grounded on a theory of perception, rather than upon beauty. Here, Boulnois explores medieval notions of creativity and originality in thinkers like Duns Scotus and Nicholas of Cusa, notions that offer the conditions for the rupture of fine arts from crafts, and ultimately, art from beauty. The fourteenth century gives rise to a crisis regarding veneration of images, a crisis of the Augustinian view, a criticism of species, and the return of the Libri carolini with Calvin and the Reform. Increasingly, images become "works of art...

L'histoire des iconoclastes (review)

Reviewed by: L'histoire des iconoclastes Sophia Mergiali-Sahas and Daniel J. Sahas L'histoire des iconoclastes. By Marie-France Auzépy. [Bilans de recherché, 2.] (Paris: Association des Amis du Centre d'Histoire et Civilization de Byzance. 2007. Pp. xvi, 386. €40,00 paperback. ISBN 978-2-916-71607-7.) The iconoclastic era (730–843) is one of conviction, passion, ideology, and "faith propaganda." As an "iconoclast" Auzépy could not have remained unaffected. The single thread that ties all her studies is her ideological conviction that the Isaurians and the iconoclasts were "the victims of a shouting historical injustice" (p. v). Thus a harvest of nineteen articles and a book chapter put into a single collection constitutes an ultimate effort at reinstating the Isaurian emperors and their fellow iconoclasts and at reshaping the face of the "grands perdants de l'histoire du viiie siècle" (p. 314) from the distortions of the iconophile sources. The brief Avant-propos makes a quick reference to the "dark ages," a period that Jonathan Shepard, editor of the Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire (2008), has titled "State of Emergency," which Auzépy used in 2005 to write a masterful chapter on the iconoclastic period. This chapter ("État d'urgence") now composes the introductory chapter of the collection. The thematic arrangement of the articles revolves around three axes: 1. "The Foundations of Orthodoxy:The Council of Nicaea II and the Patriarchate of Constantinople," 2. "The Reconstruction of the Past," and 3. "The Isaurians: A History en creux." In the first section, the author is attempting to track the iconophile urge to write the history of their opponents. To them, the iconoclasts were not even Christians but Jews or Saracens; not human but beasts, [End Page 776] lions, and dragons. Most of the section's six articles reference the Acts of Nicaea II (787), with one article citing the Adversus Constantinum Caballinum. The articles in the second section refer to the institutionalization of the "history of the iconoclasts" and the consequences of such a distorted "history." An analysis of the Vita Stephani the Young shows, according to Auzépy, a saint who died not because of his veneration of icons but because of his participation in a plot against the emperor. Thus, this is a hagiological work aiming at transforming a political person into a martyr in defense of the icons. The destruction of the icon of Christ at the Chalke gate that this writing presents as the causal event that brought about the eruption of iconoclasm is, again according to Auzépy, a later invention of the early-ninth century as it contains elements from the reign of empress Irene (797–802). Auzépy also challenges the attachment of John of Damascus to Mar Sabas as an invention of Sabaitic hagiography on the premise that the Damascene was a monk not of the Judean lavra of Mar Sabbas but of the Monastery of the Resurrection in Jerusalem. The third section contains articles in which Auzépy, taking greater risks, has sought to touch the faint footprints of the iconoclasts. In her opinion, iconoclasm configured the imperial response to the threat that the New Israel may be wiped out for insulting God by its idolatrous practices. Here, the relations between the Isaurians and the Carolingians gain distinction. The vacuum posed by Byzantine sources is filled by Western ones from the Carolingian and the papal court. The vitality of the Isaurian foreign policy is evident here, which served as a model for the Carolingians. The Libri Carolini, where the theologians of Charles the Great refuted the theology of the icons of Nicaea II, reveals a close relationship between Carolingians and Isaurians. In her work to restore the history and the image of the iconoclasts Auzépy uses the lives of saints who were considered iconoclasts. Through them, a sanctity expressed in the world through good deeds emerges, different from the monastic model of sanctity that is based on spiritual exercise and the miraculous. Another aspect of the iconoclasts was their opposition to the veneration of holy relics. As she has immersed herself into what she calls the pleasant opportunities for imagination offered by...

Traditional Veneration of Icons in the Russian Orthodox Church

The veneration of icons in the Orthodox church is an integral part of the Russian liturgical tradition. It is possible to study icons only as a sacred work of art intended for prayer. Therefore this article's goal is to show the forms of veneration of icons in the temple as its major environment. In the tradition of Russian Orthodox piety icon worship is expressed in various forms. The major form of veneration of icons is expressed in believers standing in front of them in prayer. In the services of the Russian Orthodox Church it is customary to worship icons with prayer and Akathist services. One of the Holy Fathers said: “Do, do the external, for the external belongs to us, and the internal to God. And for the external the Lord shall give us also the internal” (Pestov 2000: 542). Such external forms of the veneration of icons are expressed in bowing before them, kissing, censing, lighting candles and decorating holy images. All these signs of veneration precede the prayer and create a special mood.