Alexander Schmemann

4. Byzantium (22 pages)

From Schmemann's A History of the Orthodox Church

Page 4

Icons in the Seventh Century.

By the seventh century many literary remains give evidence of the veneration of icons; it is a well-established fact of Church life. Writes Leontius of Neapolis:

 

I sketch and paint Christ and the sufferings of Christ in churches, in homes, in public squares, and on icons, on linen cloth, in closets, on clothes, and in every place I paint so that men may see them plainly, may remember them and not forget them . . . And as thou, when thou makest thy reverence to the Book of the Law, bowest down not to the substance of skins and ink, but to the sayings of God that are found therein, so I do reverence to the image of Christ. Not to the substance of wood and paint — that shall never happen! . . . But, by doing reverence to an inanimate image of Christ . . . I think to embrace Christ Himself and to do Him reverence. . . .
We Christians, by bodily kissing an icon of Christ, or of an apostle or martyr, are in spirit kissing Christ Himself or His martyr.

 

In this perspective, every saint is a witness for Christ, showing forth all the power of union with Him, being His living icon. And from this Chalcedonian interpretation of the icon came the method of painting them prescribed by the eighty-second decree of the Trullan Synod (692):

 

In venerating the ancient icons and the saints who were devoted to the Church, as symbols and prototypes of the Truth, we especially venerate grace and truth as the fulfillment of the Law.
Therefore, that what has been accomplished may be represented to all men’s eyes through the art of painting, We decree that henceforth there are to be imprinted upon the icons of Christ our God — Who took on the guise of humanity that in this semblance men might discover the depth of God’s humility — His Words, to bring to mind His life in the fresh, His Passion, His saving Death, and the redemption of the whole world which has proceeded therefrom.

 

In this text the fundamental meaning of icons is given: they are testimonials to the Incarnation, reminders of it, images whose subject has been filled with power.

 

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