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Saint
Nectarios Greek Orthodox Church and Shrine
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Icons
on the Right Side Ceiling
Icons on the right side
ceiling (south side of the church)
Icon: the Orthodox
Definition
The Orthodox stressed the role played
by the icon in our salvation. Man was created in the image of God (Gen.
1:26, 27) but allowed that image, and with it the world, to be corrupted.
God assumed a fully human nature without ceasing to be fully God and
thereby restored the image - not just ethically, through His teachings, but
in His whole person, as is proven by His bodily resurrection. An icon of
Christ affirms the reality of that reconciliation of the human and the
divine and enables us to contemplate the person who is the model for our theosis (transfigurative
likeness).
The controversy resulted in the
sharpening of certain other ideas. The image is equivalent to Scripture as
a revelation of the truth. The image bears witness to the sanctification of
the matter by the Incarnation. A valid image is one that is faithful to its
prototype.
This last point is illustrated by the
history of Byzantine art. Fidelity to a sacred prototype means fidelity to
a transfigured reality, and this fact rules out "photographic"
realism, which would merely reproduce the likeness of the world in a state
of corruption. Only in the ascetic and liturgical life of the Church is the
world transfigured, and only in the iconographic tradition of the Church
can one find the visual formulas appropriate to that higher reality. It is
not necessary that an image duplicate precisely the colors, shapes, and
composition of an accepted formula; but whatever changes are made must
conform to, and confirm, the true meaning of the subject, and this
presupposes an artist who is immersed in the life of the Church. An image
changed to suit an individual's taste is as dangerous as a doctored
Scriptural text.
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