For Orthodox Christians, icons visually attest to the incarnation: the belief that the Second Person of the Godhead took on human flesh, while at the same time remaining fully God. This icon, with Christ’s figure filling the frame, raising his right hand in a gesture of blessing, is the Church’s bold visual statement of this mystery. Fittingly, this image of Christ is called Pantocrator, “Who rules over all” or “Lord of Hosts” (Greek: Χριστὸς Παντοκράτωρ or Hebrew: אֵל שַׁדַּי).
Many Orthodox churches have this particular icon painted into the sanctuary’s dome or ceiling, literally demonstrating that Christ rules over all within the nave and, by extension, within creation. To prayerfully stand in the presence of a consecrated icon such as this, in the Orthodox understanding, is to prayerfully stand in the presence of the image of Christ within your own person. Binding oneself to the body of Christ, his Church, through baptism, receiving communion, and practicing other actions such as studying scripture or practicing charity activates this image within you, the seed of the Logos Spermatikos, and slowly grows it into the true likeness of God.
Whatever the viewer’s attitude toward Orthodoxy, questions arise that have been wrestled with for centuries. How could Jesus be both man and God? How could Christ be fully human if he did not experience sin?
The iconographer engages these questions not with words but with color. Christ’s inner garment is a deep purple-red, and his outer robe is a bright blue-green. Traditionally, brick red symbolizes the earthen clay of human nature, while bluish violet symbolizes Divine nature; combine them and you get a deep purple-red. In a similar way, green symbolizes perfected human nature and blue symbolizes Divinity; married, the two colors give us the blue-green of Christ’s robe. Consider that color itself is an example of how a thing can be fully two distinct natures in one whole.
Consider this as well: before the world was created, the Great Council of God, the Three-in-One, decided that human was the bridge that could most fully unite the Image of God with his creation. When Adam sinned, humanity ceased being this bridge. With Christ’s incarnation, he, as that living symbol of the perfect God-Man, reopened for us the possibility of union with God through his own death and resurrection.