Why do you go to a church building to worship?

[prodromos]

No, it's on you to show it is different.

I just did. Did you not read the Scripture references I gave?

Read Isaiah 44:6-23 and tell me how that process is different than icons.

We've explained that to you in another thread, but you don't seem to understand that the above contradicts what you claimed in post #89. The pagans considered the works of their hands to actually be their God's. We do not consider icons to be anything of the sort.

 

[prodromos]

If you can't feel God's presence without some eye candy in your church, you have lost it.

Can you point to where any of us claimed we need "eye candy" to feel God's presence? Your argument looks to me like one big strawman.

 

[The Liturgist]

Indeed I have. I don't see what that has to do with your claim that by adorning our temples with images of the life of Christ and of His close friends, that great cloud of witnesses, somehow detracts from God's presence.

Indeed, not only that, but @Jesse Dornfeld further fails to note that the curtains in our Orthodox churches are icons of that curtain, in that they are opened dramatically at the start of the liturgy and at other key moments to symbolize the victory of Christ on the Cross. This also used to be done in Western churches, at least to some extent, when the majority of them had a Rood Screen, which is the Western form of an iconostasis (likewise the Bema of Armenian Apostolic churches is a form of Iconostasis, whereas the Coptic Orthodox usually use an iconostasis that follows the Byzantine model, and some Syriac Orthodox parishes are also furnished in that manner, but in all of the ancient churches, Western or Eastern, there was always a curtain which was opened at the beginning of the liturgy to symbolize the triumph of Christ over death. We know this from Patristic writings dating back to at least the fourth century, and if I recall some writings substantially older, that refer to the curtains that churches are furnished with. For example, St. Epiphanius once wrote in a letter that he was not satisfied with the iconography on a curtain in a parish he visited, so he removed it and ordered a replacement made of the finest material. I suspect this might be because the iconography may have followed the well known Arian tradition of depicting our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ without facial hair, in the appearance of a young man, which we see attested to in several archaeological artifacts, and in the Arian Baptistry in Ravenna, the iconography of which differs from the nearby Orthodox Baptistry only insofar as depicting our Lord as a beardless young man rather than as a bearded man of thirty.

 

[Valletta]

That is when God said, "I will no longer be worshiped in a temple." Temples are not necessary. If you can't feel God's presence without

It is your right to disagree with the practice of building churches as did the early Christians when first given an opportunity. You also do not have to adopt any practices in the Bible, from incense to altars to icons. But please respect the way others honor and worship God.

 

[The Liturgist]

Can you point to where any of us claimed we need "eye candy" to feel God's presence? Your argument looks to me like one big strawman.

Indeed, @Jesse Dornfeld , none of us has claimed that, and the function of iconography and of a beautiful liturgical place has nothing to do with enabling us to feel the presence of God. Indeed if you look at some improved Orthodox churches, and also at the many beautiful roadside chapels in Greece, they are often quite humble. But the presence of icons is a given in any case.

Likewise, if we look at Syriac Orthodox Churches in the Middle East, many of which have been continually vandalized and only feature a few icons due to the historic poverty of the Christian community, they are still beautiful churches and they still have what icons and relics have been preserved from destruction by the Islamic persecutors (who ironically have their own relics preserved in shrines, although many of these were destroyed by ISIS, which represents the most extreme and dangerous form of Islamic iconoclasm, one which closely resembles the extreme iconoclasm of some communist regimes such as those of North Korea and the former regime in Albania, both of which sought to destroy all traces of the old religions so as to create a new religion centered around the Party and its leaders, who in North korea are worshipped as gods.

 

[The Liturgist]

When you want to see family, do you go to where the family is or to a strangers house?

This is a good point, because our family among the Christians whose earthly life has ended, but who are alive with Christ in Heaven and await the Resurrection and the Life of the World to Come, that being the communion of the saints, is present with us in our worship, and their presence is represented through the icons that depict them, just as we keep photographs of our departed loved ones.

 

[dwb001]

This is a good point, because our family among the Christians whose earthly life has ended, but who are alive with Christ in Heaven and await the Resurrection and the Life of the World to Come, that being the communion of the saints, is present with us in our worship, and their presence is represented through the icons that depict them, just as we keep photographs of our departed loved ones.

Not what I was thinking...but you do you.

 

[All Becomes New]

Icons have NO POWER!!!

 

[The Liturgist]

This demonstrates you do not understand my question because the pagans would have said the exact. same. thing.

No they would not have, for they regard their idols as manifestations of their God which are worthy of worship and veneration in and of themselves. This is why in Hinduism, for example, the largest Pagan religion at the present, and also in the ancient pagan religions of Greece and Rome and Mesopotamia and the Levant, such as the West Semitic cult of Baal and Asherah, and the particularly vile cult of Moloch, sacrifices are made directly to the idols, as they are seen as gods in and of themselves. This is attested to by the Old Testament, in which the worship of the idols as physical manifestations of gods is depicted clearly, and also referred to by Psalms 96:5 “the gods of the gentiles are idols.” The Septuagint Greek translation of the same Psalm is also edifying in that it declares the gods of the gentiles to be demons. Both translations are correct, in that the gentiles worshipped idols, which were elaborate, realistic statues, as the physical localized manifestations of their gods, which were in fact demons who were deceiving them. Indeed, the idols of Moloch had a burning fire in them, into which were placed innocent children as sacrifices, to the idol itself, because the idol was Moloch, and a sacrifice to the idol was a sacrifice to the demon Moloch who pretended to be a god, and it was this deviation that was so intolerable to God that he allowed the Kingdom of Judah to be conquered by the Babylonians under King Nebuchadnezzar.*

Our icons are not idols, for they are not worshipped, and the subject of the veneration is the subject of the icon, and we do not offer sacrifices to our icons, God forbid.

Thus an icon is completely different from an idol, which is a physical manifestation of a demonic false god, to which sacrifices are made, and anything sacrificed to the idol is sacrificed to the false deity the idol depicts, for the idol is more than a mere depiction or representation, but rather constitutes a physical presence of the demonic entity depicted by the idol. And idols are fashioned with this function in mind, or in some cases natural phenomena such as waterfalls or a beautiful stalactite of ice, which changes in size throughout the year, in the Himalayas, are abused as idols, for example, by the Shinto in Japan and the Hindus in India. This practice was less common in antiquity, but there were the sacred groves associated with West Semitic paganism.

It is anathema according to the Seventh Ecumenical Synod, the Second Council of Nicaea, to worship an icon or to declare idols as a legitimate part of the Christian church. Because anyone who has ever committed idolatry or had an idol has been anathematized and cut off from that point and ceased to be a part of the Church, and thus we can assert that the Christian Church has always been free from idolatry, since the heretical sects that engaged in idolatry such as the Collyridians ceased to be Christian but were schismatic cults outside of the church, like the Mormons of the present.

 

[The Liturgist]

Icons have NO POWER!!!

I suppose that depends on what you mean by power. For icons do have the power to call our attention to Christ our God and also to remind us of our loved ones in the Church Triumphant, just as the photographs of our departed relatives call them to mind, and we kiss icons of Christ our true God and his saints for the same reason we kiss photographs of our relatives.

However, as far as the miraculous properties of icons are concerned, this is the work of God, and also the synergy of God and the Elect who are alive with Christ in Heaven: It is an interaction between the saints in Heaven and the uncreated energies of God that facilitates, through the grace of the same Holy Spirit that inspires us to become Christians, that indwells us following Baptism, that convicts us of sin and calls us to repentance, and that makes the Body and Blood of Christ our God present in the Eucharist, that is responsible for the many miracles that are associated with the holy icons and relics.

For example, there are those icons which miraculously stream myrhh, which is also a property of holy relics of the saints, for example, the relics of the great bishop and confessor St. Nicholas of Myra, who was tortured under Emperor Diocletian and who is also remembered for donating gold from the church treasury to prevent young girls who were at risk of being forced into prostitution from falling into such a fate, are known to stream myrhh, and have done so both when they were in the posession of the Orthodox Church and also after the Venetians expropriated them, like so many of our other relics, but fortunately the Orthodox have been permitted to continue to receive the Holy Myrhh, and also Roman Catholics are able to access it, so the situation has worked out alright, and the relics are safe in the town of Bari in Italy, which is unfortunately not the case for our holy icons and relics which are in the Middle East, which the Muslims want to destroy.

All of these miracles, whether of relics or icons, are the result either of God the Holy Spirit himself, in the case of icons depicting the Incarnate God or the miracles performed by the Spirit, or the result of the interaction of the saints in Heaven with the uncreated energies of the Holy Spirit so as to provide a sacramental means of grace for the benefit of the faithful, for their physical and spiritual healing, that calls them to greater piety and love for our savior Jesus Christ.

Which returns us to my initial statement, that icons do have the power to strengthen our faith in Jesus Christ as they remind us that God is everywhere present and fills all things, and they remind us of the sacrifice made by our Lord for our salvation, and they remind us of his glorious Resurrection, and they also inspire us to greater worship of Christ through the examples of the Christ-loving saints they depict.

Additionally, fragments of the Holy Cross, and also replicas of the Cross, have spiritual power, in that they are the bane of demons, and likewise when we make the sign of the cross upon ourselves or another or when blessing a physical object, we put demons to flight. This is the natural result of the fact that the greatest disaster to befall the devil and his minions was his unexpected defeat at Golgotha, when the all-sufficient sacrifice of Christ our God resulted in death being swallowed up in Victory.

 

[All Becomes New]

I suppose that depends on what you mean by power. For icons do have the power to call our attention to Christ our God and also to remind us of our loved ones in the Church Triumphant, just as the photographs of our departed relatives call them to mind, and we kiss icons of Christ our true God and his saints for the same reason we kiss photographs of our relatives.

However, as far as the miraculous properties of icons are concerned, this is the work of God, and also the synergy of God and the Elect who are alive with Christ in Heaven: It is an interaction between the saints in Heaven and the uncreated energies of God that facilitates, through the grace of the same Holy Spirit that inspires us to become Christians, that indwells us following Baptism, that convicts us of sin and calls us to repentance, and that makes the Body and Blood of Christ our God present in the Eucharist, that is responsible for the many miracles that are associated with the holy icons and relics.

For example, there are those icons which miraculously stream myrhh, which is also a property of holy relics of the saints, for example, the relics of the great bishop and confessor St. Nicholas of Myra, who was tortured under Emperor Diocletian and who is also remembered for donating gold from the church treasury to prevent young girls who were at risk of being forced into prostitution from falling into such a fate, are known to stream myrhh, and have done so both when they were in the posession of the Orthodox Church and also after the Venetians expropriated them, like so many of our other relics, but fortunately the Orthodox have been permitted to continue to receive the Holy Myrhh, and also Roman Catholics are able to access it, so the situation has worked out alright, and the relics are safe in the town of Bari in Italy, which is unfortunately not the case for our holy icons and relics which are in the Middle East, which the Muslims want to destroy.

All of these miracles, whether of relics or icons, are the result either of God the Holy Spirit himself, in the case of icons depicting the Incarnate God or the miracles performed by the Spirit, or the result of the interaction of the saints in Heaven with the uncreated energies of the Holy Spirit so as to provide a sacramental means of grace for the benefit of the faithful, for their physical and spiritual healing, that calls them to greater piety and love for our savior Jesus Christ.

Which returns us to my initial statement, that icons do have the power to strengthen our faith in Jesus Christ as they remind us that God is everywhere present and fills all things, and they remind us of the sacrifice made by our Lord for our salvation, and they remind us of his glorious Resurrection, and they also inspire us to greater worship of Christ through the examples of the Christ-loving saints they depict.

Additionally, fragments of the Holy Cross, and also replicas of the Cross, have spiritual power, in that they are the bane of demons, and likewise when we make the sign of the cross upon ourselves or another or when blessing a physical object, we put demons to flight. This is the natural result of the fact that the greatest disaster to befall the devil and his minions was his unexpected defeat at Golgotha, when the all-sufficient sacrifice of Christ our God resulted in death being swallowed up in Victory.

Okay, I want you to listen to me very carefully because this is serious.

You just got done telling me that inanimate objects have supernatural powers. You cannot see what is wrong with that because you are blind for the sake of your tradition.

I'm done.

 

[All Becomes New]

Last thing. Really, listen closely.

Even if you say that the object is passive and that power is only transmitted through the object, I have to ask a question. Ready? Why is this happening with an object and not a person? And if you say that it is happening with a person (a dead person) then you have to explain how the saint is in heaven yet their earthly decayed body has power.

What you are advocating for is NO DIFFERENT than healing crystals that the new agers use.

 

[The Liturgist]

Okay, I want you to listen to me very carefully because this is serious.

You just got done telling me that inanimate objects have supernatural powers. You cannot see what is wrong with that because you are blind for the sake of your tradition.

I'm done.

No, what I have said is that these objects are blessed with the grace of the Holy Spirit by virtue of being sanctified by God. This is not idolatry, nor is it sorcery, since these objects are blessed by God, and not given preternatural powers as a result of human-performed occult ritual.

Also, you should be aware, the use of the word Supernatural is reserved for things which are holy and the result of the actions of God, for God operates supernaturally.

Bearing in mind that they are delusional, insofar as people believe that certain occult paraphenalia such as wands have power, this is correctly referred to as Preternatural.

Also, everything I have taught is the ancient doctrine of the Christian Church, and in addition to being in alignment with Orthodox theology, it also is predominantly compatible with Roman Catholic theology and mostly compatible with Orthodox Lutheran and High Church Anglican beliefs.

Some aspects of the Ancient Faith may come as a shock to you or some other people, but this is how the early church worshipped.

Unfortunately many have been misled by Restorationist denominations, mostly dating from the 19th century, whose theology is based on a rejection of everything remotely associated with Roman Catholicism more than it is based on a rational, Scriptural and Patristic approach that is congruent with the beliefs of the Early Church.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

With the advent of online services and bountiful supplies of religious teaching and broadcasting the question comes to mind, "Why do I go to 'church' rather than watch 'church' on my video screen?"

Because iti is an ecclesia, a gathering.

 

[The Liturgist]

Last thing. Really, listen closely.

Even if you say that the object is passive and that power is only transmitted through the object, I have to ask a question. Ready? Why is this happening with an object and not a person? And if you say that it is happening with a person (a dead person) then you have to explain how the saint is in heaven yet their earthly decayed body has power.

What you are advocating for is NO DIFFERENT than healing crystals that the new agers use.

Firstly, it is entirely different, because the New Agers believe that healing crystals have intrinsic power in and of themselves.

I believe that holy objects in some cases have become blessed by God with properties that are sacramentally beneficial to Christians through the specific action of the Holy Spirit.

Now, regarding the relics of the saints, it seems evident that God has blessed some of those in Heaven, as a result of their holiness with incorruptible relics (“for Thou shalt not suffer Thy Holy One to See Corruption”) and these relics have miraculous properties as a result of the Holy Spirit in cooperation with the blessed and glorified saints in Heaven seeking to use these objects for the spiritual and physical benefit of Christian. It is the work of God, and of the synergistic cooperation of the glorified Christians in Heaven with God, for part of our calling as Christians, as the means of salvation, entails cooperation with and participation in the uncreated energies of God, which can be as simple as giving food to a homeless man or praying for a sick friend, or as wondrous as a saint in Heaven collaborating with God so that their relics can be a source of blessing for those on Earth.

What I feel you aren’t understanding is that these things are all the work of God; it is not as though someone painted an icon and as a result of some kind of unknown mystical process the icon suddenly acquired miraculous properties. No. Rather, every case of inanimate objects being blessed and used for our spiritual or physical healing, which includes, by the way, holy water, which is blessed at the altar by the clergy, and also in the font before Baptism, along with blessed salt, which is typically placed in the font in the sign of a cross, and which also includes the consecrated oil we are required by the Epistle of the Holy Apostle James to anoint the sick with, for their healing, spiritually or physically (and I have personally witnessed a miracle involving Holy Unction, that being the application of the consecrated oil to a member of the church for their healing), and also the Eucharist itself, where the Holy Spirit changes the bread and wine into the actual Body and Blood of the risen Christ, all of these are the work of God, according to the will of the Father, through faith in his Son and Word by whom all things were made, by the Holy Spirit who is everywhere present and fills all things, as our comforter and paraclete, and all of this is done for the glory of God, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

 

[Philip_B]

Icons have NO POWER!!!

I think at one level you are entirely correct, and this is what is taught in The Wisdom of Solomon 16:5-10

For when the terrible rage of wild animals came upon your people and they were being destroyed by the bites of writhing serpents,
your wrath did not continue to the end; they were troubled for a little while as a warning,
and received a symbol of deliverance to remind them of your law’s command.​

For the one who turned towards it was saved, not by the thing that was beheld, but by you, the Saviour of all.
And by this also you convinced our enemies that it is you who deliver from every evil.
For they were killed by the bites of locusts and flies, and no healing was found for them,
because they deserved to be punished by such things.
But your children were not conquered even by the fangs of venomous serpents, for your mercy came to their help and healed them.​

However, as an incarnational faith, we raise that matter matters, and it is not immaterial that we acknowledge that in tangible and temporal expressions we are able to grasp the eternal and the intangible.

There are a couple of basic things about icons that really need to be understood. Firstly, Icons are not painted, they are written. They are stories designed to tell us more. Orthodox friends of mine regularly refer to them as windows; by this, they infer not that we look at the icon, but through the icon to something of the deeper truths of the Kingdom of God. They are in that sense signs pointing to salvation, and help us to glimpse the hope of glory that we might draw strength for the road ahead - very much in the way that Jesus drew strength in the Transfiguration for the road that led to death and ultimately resurrection and ascension.

I believe we are all called to be icons, in that those around us should hopefully be able to perceive something of the Kingdom of God in us or through us so that we might not only be blessed but be a blessing.

 

[prodromos]

Icons have NO POWER!!!

Well duh!
Whatever miracles occur through them are by the grace of God.

 

[prodromos]

Okay, I want you to listen to me very carefully because this is serious.

It's ironic that you ask this, as it is clearly apparent that you don't return the favor.

You just got done telling me that inanimate objects have supernatural powers. You cannot see what is wrong with that because you are blind for the sake of your tradition.

Our Tradition is entirely Scriptural.

Acts 19:11-12​

And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul:​

So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them.​

​

2 Kings 13:21​

And as a man was being buried, lo, a marauding band was seen and the man was cast into the grave of Eli′sha; and as soon as the man touched the bones of Eli′sha, he revived, and stood on his feet.​

Both Paul and Elisha had become temples of the Holy Spirit and had become conduits for the outpouring of God's Grace. What is evident from the example of Elisha is that God's Grace does not cease to flow through the bodies of the Saints on their death, and their are thousands of examples of such in the history of the Church. I've personally witnessed it myself and I have heard and read the testimony of many others.

I'm done.

Well hopefully you're done with misrepresenting our faith

 

[The Liturgist]

I think at one level you are entirely correct, and this is what is taught in The Wisdom of Solomon 16:5-10

For when the terrible rage of wild animals came upon your people and they were being destroyed by the bites of writhing serpents,​

your wrath did not continue to the end; they were troubled for a little while as a warning,​

and received a symbol of deliverance to remind them of your law’s command.​

For the one who turned towards it was saved, not by the thing that was beheld, but by you, the Saviour of all.​

And by this also you convinced our enemies that it is you who deliver from every evil.​

For they were killed by the bites of locusts and flies, and no healing was found for them,​

because they deserved to be punished by such things.​

But your children were not conquered even by the fangs of venomous serpents, for your mercy came to their help and healed them.​

However, as an incarnational faith, we raise that matter matters, and it is not immaterial that we acknowledge that in tangible and temporal expressions we are able to grasp the eternal and the intangible.

There are a couple of basic things about icons that really need to be understood. Firstly, Icons are not painted, they are written. They are stories designed to tell us more. Orthodox friends of mine regularly refer to them as windows; by this, they infer not that we look at the icon, but through the icon to something of the deeper truths of the Kingdom of God. They are in that sense signs pointing to salvation, and help us to glimpse the hope of glory that we might draw strength for the road ahead - very much in the way that Jesus drew strength in the Transfiguration for the road that led to death and ultimately resurrection and ascension.

I believe we are all called to be icons, in that those around us should hopefully be able to perceive something of the Kingdom of God in us or through us so that we might not only be blessed but be a blessing.

Yes, this is entirely correct, together with what @prodromos wrote, and also your post and his contain the point I was seeking to make.