Facing the Russian Icons

Dearest Brothers and Sisters:

Here's an interesting site I found from Terry Mattingly:

http://tmatt.gospelcom.net/column/2003/07/16/

Facing the Russian icons

7/16/2003

As was his custom, the thief began his day with prayer before an icon of Mary and Jesus. But then the image began to move and he saw bleeding wounds on the Christ child's hands and feet.

Trembling, he cried out: "Oh lady, who has done this?"

"You and other sinners," said Mary, "who crucify my Son anew with your sins."

In this classic Russian icon called "Unexpected Joy" the thief repents and begins a new life. The icon is complex, yet contains a spiritual truth that would have been clear to the Russians who faced it as they prayed. They understood the symbolism. They knew the parable. But what does this 19th century icon say to Americans who see it hanging in a gallery?

"It's hard for us to grasp things like this," said Frederica Mathewes-Green, author of "The Open Door: Entering into the Sanctuary of Icons and Prayer."

"The thief is convicted of his sins and repents and the result is this 'Unexpected Joy.' Repentance? Joy? We have trouble connecting the two. Of course, we also have trouble imaging a thief who faithfully prays in his icon corner. ... It's like this icon lets us have a glimpse of a whole different world."

It was late on a muggy Washington, D.C., afternoon and a few tired visitors were viewing the 89 works in a summer exhibition called "Windows Into Heaven: Russian Icons, 1650-1917" at the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center. There were glorious angels from the doors that lead from sanctuaries to altars. Immaculate icons from the workshops of czars -- details painted with single-hair brushes -- hung near the rough icons of peasants.

Many of the images featured familiar faces and scenes, from St. John the Baptist to St. George and the dragon. This constant repetition of themes often puzzles visitors. Others ask why some icons are "more artistic" than others, said volunteer John Harrison.

"But this really isn't about art, is it? Each of these icons may be a copy of a copy of a copy," he said. "But that's the point. The images are familiar. But each icon had a life of its own. It is real. It was a holy object to real people, in a real time and a real place. Their prayers were real."

It's almost impossible for Americans to grasp the role icons played in for centuries in lands such as Russia, said curator James Lansing Jackson, who assembled this exhibit. In addition to prayer corners in homes, these "windows into heaven" were found in factories, stores, schools, prisons, offices, roadside shrines and countless other public and private locations.

"They were literally everywhere and part of almost every event in life," he said, reached at his office in Cedar Falls, Iowa. "The typical home might have contained 20 or more. ... There were probably 200 million icons in Russia in the days before the 1917 revolution."

Many Orthodox believers fled as the Bolsheviks took control and they took family treasures with them, including their icons, said Jackson. By the 1930s, Soviet officials were selling antiques, art and icons on foreign markets to raise hard currency.

Some believers hid their icons during times of terror and persecution. Then, as generations passed, some flung them aside as signs of a forgotten faith. With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, there was another frenzy of interest in icons, for reasons ranging from spiritual hunger to raw commercialism.

"Ironically, the fact that they did have historic and antique value gave many people a motive to save them," said Jackson. "They were saved by greed and by the fascination that Westerners have for them. That's a strange thing to say, but it's true."

Still, it's poignant to face icons in settings "so far from their homes," said Mathewes-Green. This is like being introduced to orphans whose lives have been shattered. Who knows what happened to their families?

"It's tragic when you see them collected as mere art objects, put away somewhere in glass cases," she said. "They are beautiful and it's tempting to get caught up in their beauty. But the icons are not what we are supposed to focus on. That is not their true purpose.

"They are supposed to lead us somewhere else."

__________________
Virgin Theotokos, rejoice!
O Mary, Full of Grace;
The Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women,
And blessed is the fruit of thy womb,
For thou hast borne the Savior of our souls.

+ + + + +

Glory to Jesus Christ!
Glory Forever!
O Giver of Life, Glory to Thee!


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Just curious...

How did you face up to icons? Did they grab you or did you have trouble accepting them?

Because of my exposure to the Perpetual Help Icon in the Roman Catholic Church, I was opened to Icons. Still it bothered me to kiss and to venerate them. That was something I had to learn to do.

One day I was blessed to visit a miraculous icon of the Theotokos. It was gushing oil and the whole church had the aroma like a bouquet of fresh flowers.
Bowing down to kiss it I noticed that it was dark and I couldn't see the face. Walking away, I realized that I really had to acknowledge some sins before God and repent of them. Only after that, did I return to venerate the Icon of the Theotokos. This time she was lighter and I could see the oil streaming from her eyes and from her Son's eyes. It is a memory I will always cherish.

__________________
Virgin Theotokos, rejoice!
O Mary, Full of Grace;
The Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women,
And blessed is the fruit of thy womb,
For thou hast borne the Savior of our souls.

+ + + + +

Glory to Jesus Christ!
Glory Forever!
O Giver of Life, Glory to Thee!


To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Wonderful story chanter.

I had no problem with Icons. In a way I am fortunate that I had only become a Christian several years ago, baptized as a Southern Baptist. I never really had a chance to have a hardened heart towards Orthodoxy, nor did I have to shed years of repetative teachings against the Church. I like to think that since I can become obsessive or fanatical about things, God allowed me to remain apart from him until the time was right. If I had been Baptist for a long time, I might not have embraced Orthodoxy. Perhaps these are thoughts better left for my upcoming conversion testimony.

__________________


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From the CF Dictionary:

Tradition of men: Biblical doctrine that I disagree with.

Word of God: My personal opinion.


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Not entirely off topic, but I do have a problem with the more modern Russian icons, the ones that look Western with the 3D look. My absolute favorite is the Vladimir Icon of the Theotokos.

__________________


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From the CF Dictionary:

Tradition of men: Biblical doctrine that I disagree with.

Word of God: My personal opinion.


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What's interesting for me is that I used to react much more favorably to statues than icons. I am an illustartor and just didn't like the style in which the icons were written. Then I read about the icons and why they are written as they are.
I now like them very much and appreciate that they are slightly "abstract." It lends them a certain otherworldliness and makes clearer that they are symbolic (almost iconic, you might say! )

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The painting was not an ikon, but it had power. It is a life size painting of the crucifixion that I saw in the Winter Palace in St Petersburg when it was known as Leningrad in 1971. The Soviets were giving us a tour of the sites, we were a high school band on tour. I came around a corner and was in awe of the painting. I remembered thinking at the time they were not going to have an athiestic society with paintings like that on display!
My first encounter with Ikons was when I went to St Spiridon Cathedral in Seattle when I was a student at the University of Washington. I was impressed at a non-rational level, and realized over time I had seen heaven. They, ikons speak to the right brain if we let them.
Jeff the Finn

I saw my first icons in a museum exhibit in April of 2000. I went to Portland to see the Stroganoff exhibit. The exhibit was set up like rooms in the Stroganoff Palace in St. Petersburg. One of the rooms had all the icons in it (the Stroganoff's had an icon school for centuries). I fell in love with the icons. They just grabbed me. They even had some embroidered icons (one was of the Theotokos). The one that really touched me was the plazhenitsa (sp?). That one especially touched me. I started attending an Orthodox Church 4 months later and was Chrismated 8 months after that.

Funny, but as a former Reformed Protestant, I didn't have that much trouble with icons or relics. (I got to venerate the relics of St. Nicholas recently. That was something.)

It's hard to recall my "first" encounter with them. As I look back on my life, it's almost like God kept allowing me to see glimpses of Orthodoxy in different ways.

My favorite icon has to be Christ The Good Shepherd. And I like Christ The Teacher too (being a teacher myself, that figures).

I wear an icon from Russia, Christ and the Theotokos. There's an inscription on the back, but it's written in Russian, so I don't know what it says.

Peace.

Peter

Hi.

I didn't have any reserves with icons or holy relics. However, I am still somewhat awkward and clumsy in my approach both to icons and also in the presence of a priest. It's okay though, I'm learning.
Being that I was an on-again off-again Protestant...I wasn't highly engraved with the "I don't need this..or I don't have to do that.." attitude.
Philip...there is a monastery in Fort Myers which has many many relics. It's the Holy Theotokos Monastery. Among the relics are....The Holy and Life-Giving Cross, St Mary Magdalene, St Mary sister of Lazarus, Sts Constantine and Helen, St Seraphim of Sarov, St Herman of Alaska, St Nektarios, St Gregory Palamas, St Panteleimon, St Basil the Great, and many many others. I was in awe while I was there. We were in good company.
If you ever get a chance, you should visit.