Theotokos Hodigitria  
She Who Shows the Way “of the Dove”

In Greek, Hodigitria is the word for “she who shows the way.” If this were a painting of an ordinary mother, we might see this phrase and assume that it’s the growing child in her arms to whom the mother is showing the way to maturity. But this is the Theotokos, the God Bearer, and with her hands gently pointing to the child in her arms, she shows us that Christ, the Logos Emmanuel, “is the way, the truth and the life” (John 14:6). 

With the Hodigitria-type icon, a subtle shift occurs for the viewer through the gentle pointing of the Theotokos. Instead of our focus being entirely on Mary, we now notice that how Christ is depicted suggests a different relationship between body and soul. The Logos confirms this suggestion by the authority of his gaze, now directed at the viewer rather than his mother. Most often in a Hodigitria icon, the Christ child holds a scroll indicating he is a teacher and the actual Word of God. Here, unusually, the child holds two doves. While not replacing the idea of the scroll, the doves remind the viewer of the Christian feast of the Presentation at the Temple: Jewish law required a young family to bring their firstborn son to the Temple in Jerusalem forty days after birth, after the period of uncleanness was finished, with either a lamb or two turtledoves for sacrifice. The doves Christ holds show that his future teaching will be one of humility and gentleness, equally present in a person of maturity.

Hodigitria icons symbolically depict the progress of faith in a Christian who has firmly decided to follow the commandments of Christ. The initial joy of tender, youthful faith has begun to fade, a child needs to grow up, and the path of growth becomes narrow, sometimes rocky and thorny. The Christian must now deepen his or her study, practice virtue and disciplined prayer, and patiently await his or her own meeting with the Lord—that is, a new installment of grace, which takes place in the very center of the soul.

In Orthodox teaching, spiritual realities are apprehended through our intelligence, which includes, but is more than, mere reason. Our soul has a center, which is called different things by various Church Fathers: mind, heart, eye of the heart, nous. In this icon, the Logos Emmanuel represents the very center of the soul. He is the prophetic word, bearing wisdom, thereby illuminating both the soul and body. 

And what of the Theotokos? Having borne God, how does she now continue to show us the way? The Hodigitria icon traditionally emphasizes Mary’s quality of virginity, which, in New Testament times, referred less to sexual purity and more to the completeness, or wholeness, of a person. Just as the clay bole for the gilding of the halo must be pure, without grit or blemish, purified and burnished to accept the gold, the Virgin represents the senses of the soul, purified to the point of giving birth to the soul’s “heart,” illuminated by Christ, the Logos Emmanuel, God-With-Us. Follow her unbroken gaze and we too can become unified in soul and body: virginal and whole.

Theotokos Oranta  
Our Lady of the Sign

Rejoice Living Table That Held the Bread of Life

In this historically and theologically rich icon, the Theotokos no longer holds her son; like all mothers she has had to let him go, and now her open arms are raised in prayer (oranta means “one who prays”). Far from leaving his mother, however, the Christ, Logos Emmanuel, hangs in a colored disc at the center of the icon, upheld by a many-winged angel. 

The impossible task of the iconographer is to portray with only material what is immaterial. The iconographer’s tool kit is therefore limited, yet there is one “material” that symbolically unites with the immaterial: color. Since color is refracted light, whose energies or wavelength varies, material pigments allow the iconographer to symbolically join the pure “light” of the spiritual world to the color of life on the material plane. Looking closely at this Oranta icon, starting with the frame and ending with the Logos, we see the whole color spectrum from red to violet and the whole meaning of the icon becomes clear. 

The outer red, orange, and yellow colors of the frame and the orb behind the Theotokos mark her as the “Woman clothed in the Sun” from the book of Revelation. Green, the center color of the rainbow, represents New Testament man, the person exemplified most exquisitely by Mary, the God Bearer. In this icon, she becomes the altar table upon which we are able to glimpse, at last, the whole of the Kingdom of Heaven in that small disc of green-blue, indigo, and violet in which the seed-Word holds the bread and wine. 

With the rainbow we understand the harmony of the created, represented by the Theotokos, and the uncreated, represented by the Christ. These two states, mother and child, or created and uncreated, now happily coexist, a synergy of independent yet united action. With outstretched arms the Theotokos simultaneously engulfs, upholds, and proffers her son. Still and always, Mary represents purity, but in the Oranta icon, purification has become divinization. The rainbow represents the deification of all visible creation, including mankind, since Mary leads the way for all humanity. 

And now we see that for the first time, mother and child are not alone: three ranks of angels attend the unceasing worship of the Logos-Eucharist and the glorification of the Holy Theotokos. On her left, a fiery red seraph represents Love; on her right, a deep red cherub represents Wisdom; below, a green many-winged ophanim angel upholds the disc of the Kingdom of Heaven and represents the stable Will of God. And in the lower corners, two silhouetted angels ceaselessly proclaim Axios! Worthy! and Agios! Holy!

Joyfully we echo the saints who sing, “Thy womb is become an holy table, bearing Christ the heavenly bread. All that eat from it shall not die, as hath said the Nourisher of all, O Mother of God. More honorable than the cherubim and more glorious than the seraphim: without defilement you gave birth to God the Word, True Theotokos, we magnify you!”

The Three Warriors

Now we are thrust into what feels like an entirely different world from the intimate poses of the Theotokos icons, for here we have tremendous violent action. Yet, perhaps, what connects these three Christian warriors to the icons of the Theotokos is purity—for in this troubled world the pursuit of pure union with God often looks like a battle. In the Epistle to the Ephesians, Paul says, “for we wrestle not with flesh and blood, but with principalities, powers and the rulers of darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6:12 KJV). Or, as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has written, “The battle between good and evil runs through every human heart.”* 

The Christian understanding of the nature of mankind is that we have three aspects: body, soul, and spirit. Each dragon in this icon symbolizes the temptations of the body, soul, or spirit. In the lowest register, Saint Theodore, a Greek warrior who was martyred in the fourth century, thrusts his spear into a dragon with reddish wings that represent clay, Old Testament man, the body. This beast symbolizes the physical temptations that cannot be tamed but must be killed outright. Thus, as the dragon’s tail wraps itself around his stallion’s leg, Theodore stabs it in the heart, quickly and emotionally. 

In the middle register we see Saint George, who was martyred in the third century. The dragon he faces has greenish wings, the color of New Testament man, so this dragon represents temptations of the soul. These temptations are more subtle passions: a lustful ego disguised by good works, social consensus that veils a bid for power, or emotional outbursts used to blur moral responsibilities. These, like this dragon, don’t need to be killed but need to be ordered properly, which is why the princess on the right has a leash around the dragon’s neck. Once Saint George has pierced the dragon’s tongue, she will lead the wounded, now tame and ordered, dragon into the city behind her. 

The upper figure portrays Archangel Michael fighting the great dragon described in the Book of Revelation, a battle yet to come. The dragon’s purplish wings encircled in a purplish disc are the most fugitive and difficult evil to detect: it is the delusion of religion gone awry, represented by the buildings of civilization on the dragon’s back. Only with the aid of the truth of the Gospel book Archangel Michael holds can the great angel’s spear pierce the dragon in the head. 

The viewer will not want to miss the small, dark blue orb in the upper left corner, from which God’s hand reaches out to bless the efforts of the warrior Christians. Notice how this vivid image is mirrored in the lower right corner by the large cave in front of which Theodore battles, and be struck anew by humanity’s need to resist evil and to be rescued from it. 

Christ Pantocrator

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.

Archangels Michael and Gabriel

The Prosopon School has found it useful for its students to begin their study of icon painting with these two angelic figures, warrior Archangel Michael and bearer of good news Archangel Gabriel. The angels stand, quietly, holding staffs and orbs of authority, and wear complex colored garments. The floor beneath them is beautifully ornate, yet even so, their feet require pillows on which to stand. These exalted beings seem to have little in common with the here-in-the-dirt-with-us angel who wrestles Jacob. Why is it, then, that the Prosopon School begins its curriculum always with these two? 

In the Orthodox understanding, angels are called spiritual fire, minds, and second lights. Although angels are creatures made by God, they do not have bodies. (They do have names, however: Micha-el means “Who is like unto God” and Gabri-el means “Who is the might of God.”) Angels communicate energetically with mankind, sometimes through reason and words but also through the inner enlightening of our minds. Angels reflect the light of God, taking on different forms at God’s bidding, and are thereby able to unveil Divine mysteries, according to Saint John of Damascus.

The Prosopon School’s integration of iconography (the art of making icons) with iconology (the theory and theology of icons) offers a visual and experiential way to open the “angelic mind” that every human being possesses. Beginning students first paint Archangel Michael, the warrior who battles sin and is the closest to mankind. Meditating on Archangel Michael fortifies the student in his or her own fight against sin, clearing a path toward opening one’s angelic mind. The next-in-rank, Archangel Gabriel, is appropriately the second icon students will study, for it is only through the good news he brings to Mary, “behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son” (Luke 1:31 KJV), that humanity gains re-entry into Paradise. With the painting of these first two angels, the arc of humanity’s story of the fall and redemption is compressed through visual economy, encouraging students to continue on their journey.

What next in the progression of the Prosopon School teaching? The archangels, as spiritual fire, ignite within the student the desire for the further steps; with the third icon of Saint John the Baptist, students reflect on the Baptist’s call to repentance, followed by the fourth icon, one of the Theotokos, which deepens the student’s understanding of obedience. These four completed icons await and lean toward the central icon, which depicts Christ, reinforcing the core teaching of icons: “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things” (Colossians 1:19–20 KJV). Completing the first five icons in the Prosopon School forms a Deisis, calling each student to prayer.

Deisis
Saint Gregory of Nyssa, The Theotokos, Christ Enthroned in Glory, Saint John the Baptist, and Saint Gregory Palamas

Deisis comes from the Greek word for prayer or supplication, and it is the name given to the standard group of icons adorning the first tier of the iconostasis above the royal doors. The looming iconostasis, or icon screen, confronts everyone who enters an Orthodox church because it divides the nave from the altar. An iconostasis has central “royal” doors, which are sometimes open during services, and a door on either side called the “deacon” doors. Above the doors are multiple levels of icons, depending on the size of the church, each level with a specific theme and purpose. The Church believes that this boundary between two worlds—the mundane and the holy, the material and the Divine—is a place of great spiritual danger, where all temptations and seductions are highly concentrated. The primary protection in this area of conflict or boundary of battle is the image of Christ, seated in Glory, directly above the royal doors. His Light shatters and pierces all the world, reaching into every dark cranny and level of existence, across time and space.

As the viewer’s gaze expands, it is drawn to the quiet, attentive, energetic images of Mary, the Theotokos, and Saint John the Baptist facing and leaning toward Christ, a posture not only of reverence and submission but also of oppositional unity. The Theotokos, God Bearer, represents female, love, nurture, birth, the fully realized New Testament person of body and soul. Saint John the Baptist represents male, ascetic, Old Testament law, and disciplined virtue with the call to repentance of the body. These seemingly opposite persons, whose combined energies are essential to the proclamation of Light, are immediate evidence of the universality of the Church throughout time, which has its roots in the old covenant, but gives the promise of newness of life.

For Wrestling with Angels, we present an abbreviated Deisis that includes the three central figures and two great teachers of the Church, Saint Gregory of Nyssa and Saint Gregory Palamas, whose teaching is essential for iconographers of the Prosopon School. They, too, like Saint John the Baptist and the Theotokos, unite seemingly opposite concepts. In their teaching, they proclaim that the nature of Christ’s energetic Light, or Glory, is simultaneously apophatic (unspeakable, undepictable) and cataphatic (speakable and depictable), its mystery apprehended only in union.

Each Deisis proclaims that Christ’s bright Light permeates and upholds all of the created order, from the humble Theotokos and Saint John the Baptist, to the powerful archangels of heaven, to the saints of the Church, and indeed out to us, the congregation, worshipping and praying in the nave. Because the Church is built upon human beings facing Christ, the physical act of facing a Deisis depicts the direction of the soul to its center: Christ. More than the building’s brick and mortar, it is this facing of men and women, old and young, toward the altar from which Christ gives of himself in the holy gifts that constitutes the Church. Under the gaze of great saints, the people eat the Body of Christ, activating the seed within them, calling them to become like the saints they behold, who actually live in Christ at every moment. In this spiral outpouring and return, the screen is no longer a barrier but a bridge into Paradise. 

Annunciation

The Wrestling with Angels exhibit presents icons of eight of the twelve major feasts of the Orthodox Church year, along with four other festal icons. Each festal icon has two aspects: historical and mystical. It is through the historical events that we perceive and understand the mystical events that, in turn, symbolically occur within us. Saint Maximus says, “And just as we know that a person who has been renewed becomes more sublime and godlike than himself, beaming with joy from his progress in virtue, so too must we believe that every sacred feast established for our sake becomes—in us and through us—more sublime than itself, because through our faithful celebration the mystery signified through the feast acquires its proper power to lead us to perfection.” * 

For example, the feast of the Annunciation celebrates the historical event of a young virgin sitting on a stool spinning thread. An angel appears to tell her she is going to get pregnant. For some, simply seeing an angel might be the mystical event. For others, the fact that this announcement will lead to the incarnation of Christ and thus the salvation of the world is the mystical event. For the Orthodox Christian, while both of the above are true, the mystical action of the Annunciation occurs at the point in which the Virgin notices the will of God, understands its cost, then willingly yields—and this action repeats, mystically, in large or small incidents, in church or in everyday life, whenever we notice, understand, and yield to God. Through the practice of hearing the personal proclamation of the will of God and repeatedly choosing the same obedience that the Theotokos chose, we are changed into the sublime self we should become. 

Traditional iconography sometimes refers to the Annunciation as the moment of doubt because the Bible says that Mary was “troubled.” Father Maximos Constas, in The Art of Seeing, has a moving interpretation, “This is the risk of unsealing the self, of consenting to have the chamber of the heart host another’s presence. The unsealing of love is a form of kenosis, an emptying of the self, a making of space within the womb of one’s being.... In the story of Mary, we have also come to know something of the human cost, both for her and for every soul that receives the Divine fire in the well of the heart.”

Visitation

Though not universally accepted as a feast on the Orthodox Church calendar, the Visitation event is important because it continues the powerful yielding “yes” of the Annunciation. In fact, both icons feature a bright red veil, which in iconography signals that, underneath it, a holy, mystical action is taking place. 

Shortly after her encounter with the Archangel Gabriel, Mary visits her elderly cousin Elizabeth, who is also miraculously expecting a child (John the Baptist). At this meeting, scripture says, the baby in Elizabeth’s womb leaps for joy, and Mary sings a song of praise (known widely as her “Magnificat”). This event is Mary’s personal Annunciation of her condition, the action declaring to the world her acceptance of the angel’s words, making the incarnation all the more real because it is shared with her cousin. 

The two mothers in the image are static and still, but the babies appear to be talking, and indeed the scene around them is filled with bright buildings, flowing waters, a spiraling tree, and even a family of swimming ducks. It is as if Mary’s “yes” unleashes the world’s fecundity. 

The icon embodies a spiritual paradox: silence can be action; obedient acquiescence can be a proclamation. The buildings behind the two women are especially telling. They are an iconological symbol of the New Jerusalem, heaven, which to the Orthodox is not only a place or a future event, but also a state of being. The icon joyfully tells us that, because of Mary’s obedient action to the call of the Holy Spirit through the Archangel Gabriel—her willingness to be the God Bearer—this new state of being is now accessible in our world, to us.

“My soul magnifies the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior. For he has looked 0n the humble estate of his servant; behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed. For he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is
his name.”

Luke 1:46-49

Nativity

Your Nativity, O Christ our God, has shone to the world the light of wisdom!
(Christmas Tropar,* fourth-century hymn)

Today the Virgin gives birth to the Transcendent One, 
and the earth offers a cave to the Unapproachable One!
(Christmas Kontakion,* sixth-century hymn by Saint Roman the Melodist)

These Orthodox Christmas hymns articulate two themes of this complex icon: Light and Earth. Christ enlightens the world (the Earth) through his birth. The Theotokos, Mary, gave a veil of flesh to Christ, enrobing him with clay. The multi-scene icon is enacted on rugged hills called gorki, earthen landscape that represents our gradual ascent toward God. Always helped by the Holy Spirit, ascent is gradual: two steps forward then one backward, some steps jagged, some smooth. This is the path of human, clay-bound life seeking God in a fallen world. 

In the bottom third of the icon we see Joseph, the husband of Mary, in troubled conversation with an old man; on the right we see servant girls washing the newborn Christ. Both scenes acknowledge Christ’s humanness. He had a real body that needed washing and a real family that had to struggle with doubt. 

In the middle third of the icon, we see a cave with animals. This cave represents the darkness of the material world, which receives the Light of the Divine through the birth of Christ. Shepherds have climbed the mountain and can see the babe. These are natural, simple men whose daily contact with creation has purified them, enabling them to climb up high enough to see the babe. 

On the left are the magi, whose vast learning and obedient faith have also allowed them to see and worship. In Christian understanding, there are three ways to learn of God: creation, scripture, and revelation. Both the simple and the wise of the world can learn enough about God to “see the babe”—understanding what they see is another matter altogether. In contrast to the climbing figures, the Theotokos stretches out, fully at rest. 

Continuing up the mountains to the top third of the icon, the viewer sees a band of “darkness” juxtaposed against the earthly cave’s deeper darkness. This immaterial darkness is a sort of noetic cave, filled with angels rejoicing at Christ’s Light entering the physical world. At the very top of the icon, the dark mandorla with its progressively lighter bands represents the Trinity: the unknowable Father, the now-incarnate Son, and the ever-proceeding Spirit. Mystically, and mysteriously, Love reaches from this Triune God into all the world through the birth of Christ.

Theophany

The Theophany icon is the moment recounted in the Gospels when the adult Jesus approaches Saint John the Baptist at the River Jordan and asks to be baptized.  John, who recognizes Jesus as Christ, bows down and says, “One who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals” (Matthew 3:11 NRSA). Notice how Christ in the water is below John, who was called “the greatest born among women” and considered to have reached the highest peak of Old Testament righteousness. Bowing from a great height, the prophet and forerunner obediently pours river water on Christ’s head, and as he does, the Holy Spirit descends from the sky in the form of a dove. The voice of God the Father is heard saying, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17 NASB).

This event and corresponding feast day in the Church calendar is called Theophany because it was the first recorded New Testament “shining forth” of God, and specifically of God as Trinity. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as one, proclaim the humility of Christ, who by taking on human flesh, and condescending to be baptized, purified the waters of the cosmic world. Notice how even the spirits of the water submit themselves to him. 

The Trinitarian revelation at the Jordan is echoed in the structure of the icon, with its three vertical columns and three horizontal planes united in Christ. Horizontal, cosmic emotions and energies are blessed and baptized through Christ’s own baptism. Even the small white figure at the top center of the icon reinforces the Trinitarian theme. Since Church Fathers forbade the practice of depicting God the Father in iconography at the Seventh Ecumenical Council, this figure is not God the Father, rather it is Lord of Sabaoth, the iconographic proclamation of the unity of the Trinity, one God. 

In baptism, as understood by the Orthodox Church, each person becomes what he or she was initially conceived to be in Paradise. Water pouring over the Anointed One becomes purified and cleansed. Angels rejoice. So, too, within every baptized person, the soul’s energies or waters are purified, able to apprehend the Logos Emmanuel, who is literally “God-With-Us.” Baptized and made manifest, the Logos Spermatikos, the indwelling seed, is now able to unfurl within the believer.

Transfiguration

Shortly before he was crucified, scripture tells us that Christ asks Peter, James, and John to accompany him to “the mountain,” possibly Mount Tabor, to pray. While praying, Christ turns bright with dazzling light; Moses and Elijah appear and converse with him; a cloud envelops the disciples; and a voice is heard from heaven that says, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him” (Matthew 17:5 ESV). 

Called the Transfiguration, this event invites the painter of icons to bring to bear everything he or she knows about color and light. In the center of the image, Christ radiates light and transfigured color. Close to Christ, colors are vivid and bright. Farther away, colors dull, soften, and dissipate, not only among the human figures but also in the heavens above, for the transfiguration of Christ is not just a historical event for the disciples but also an event that reverberated in the heavens. The circular diminution of light and color reinforces the central transfigured light of Christ. 

The seven dark or colorless places in the icon are the six caves in the bottom third of the image, with a seventh in the deep star-like shape behind Christ. These caves represent the five senses of a human being plus our ability to reason. Their craggy shapes and haphazard arrangement seem to pull away from the beautiful circle shape that radiates from Christ, extending to the rounded arc of the heavens and even to the positions of the five human beings around him. Yet, at the same time that the caves pull the viewer’s eye away from the harmony of that circle, the equally “craggy” yet gorgeously ordered and ornamented points of the deep dark star behind Christ call the eye back to himself and visually declare that all things find their fullness in him. This reflects the Orthodox belief that God became man so that man, by grace, might become like God.  

Thus, when Christ asks the disciples to come with him to the mountain, he is inviting them to embark on a vast journey of ascent that will require the entirety of their personhood to complete.

On the mountain were you transfigured, O Christ God and your disciples beheld your glory as far as they could see it; so that when they would behold you crucified, they would understand that your suffering was voluntary and would proclaim to the world that you are truly the radiance of the Father! 

~ Festal Kontakion

Crucifixion

This icon of the Crucifixion focuses on the hours that Christ hung on the Cross, with all the pain, grief, and suffering the event entailed. The faces of Mary, his mother, and John, known as the “disciple whom Jesus loved,” are downcast and weeping. Despair is evident. A soldier mocks. Blood and water flow from Christ’s pierced side. 

And yet, the grief and violence as depicted by the iconographer are gentle, fluid, and softened. The city of Jerusalem in the background is curved; the arms of Christ are also curved, open to all the world in a living gesture of invitation and unification. In this brutal, unjust event, the cosmos is given a new path, and even the angels bow in silence to the mystery of the Cross. 

Every year, the Christian Church prepares to honor Christ’s death and resurrection with a forty-day fast known as Great Lent. Saint Maximus the Confessor says, “All visible realities need the cross, that is, the state in which they are cut off from things acting upon them through the senses.”* The Church understands that people need a method to reawaken and recognize their own soul: the communal fasting and repentance of Great Lent prepare believers to encounter and embrace the Crucifixion deeply within their own selves. In so doing, the cross, an instrument of torture, is transfigured into the Tree of Life. This paradox can be experienced in the icon’s repeating colors and shapes. The red raspberry of the angel’s robe is the same color as the disciple John’s robe; Christ’s vertical cross is echoed in and juxtaposed against the off-kilter architectural background and the jagged dark cave below. The odd shape in the cave represents a skull, identifying the place as Golgotha, the “place of the skull,” where non-canonical sources locate Adam’s grave. Here is the nexus of the paradox: the first Adam, whose disobedience denied humanity access to the Garden of Eden’s Tree of Life, lies in the dark earth below while the second Adam, Christ, hangs upon a green and life-giving “tree,” the cross. The first Adam, in his life, brought death into the world. This second Adam, in his death, offers life. We see that the power of the self-emptying Cross reaches to all creatures and all dimensions.

“By Thy Passion, Thou givest dispassion to all, O Lover of Mankind. Having mortified the passions of my flesh by Thy Divine Cross, enable me also to behold Thy Holy Resurrection. O Lord, Thou hast willed to be crucified upon the place of the skull, O Holy Immortal One, granting immortality and transfiguring humanity.”

From the Iconwriters Daily Prayer (Whitney Point, NY: Prosopon School of Iconology, 2002), 23–24.

Resurrection

Positioned far below the earthly mountains in the upper right and left corners of this image, Christ stands powerfully on the broken gates of hell, which are formed into a cross. Up above, gathered in the blue sphere of liminal space, is an icon within the icon in which three angelic figures gaze at another cross, this one gold and unbroken. These angelic figures represent the Holy Trinity. There are deep mysteries here, but for the purposes of this text, consider just one: How is it that the cross, a first-century Roman instrument of torture and death, is gilded and venerated by the God of the Universe, and how does such an image fit in an icon devoted to the resurrection of Christ? 

At first this question may not seem so momentous. Do we not build museums filled with images of the Holocaust, for example? Do we not memorialize places of great tragedy? Clearly, there’s a human need to bring the heart and mind to bear on symbolic representations of past suffering or evil. But something is different here. The figures gazing at the golden cross are neither human nor bound by earthly time. In the Orthodox understanding, the Triune God decided, before the world was even created, to set in motion the events that would become Christ’s incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. Why? In order, the Church says, to open the possibility for all humanity to enter the intimate gathering in that blue circle: for all of creation to join in the mystical celebration of the Life-Giving Trinity. 

This opening, this reuniting unity, is made possible only through Christ’s voluntary journey toward and ascent to death on the Cross—and the icon points to this with its repeated crosses and cross shapes. There is the aforementioned golden cross and its echoed shape in the broken gates of hell; there is the X-shaped cross formed by gold lines raying out from Christ’s resurrected body; there is a red cross in the halo around Christ’s head; and there is also the shape made by the lines of worshipping humans spreading out horizontally, crossed with the upright body of Christ, his glorious height reaching down to the depths of hell and up to the Trinity above. 

“Through the Cross,” the Orthodox sing at Pascha, Orthodox Easter, “joy has come into all the world.” None of the humans in the icon have halos; none have done anything to earn their spot at the feast table with God. Yet neither are the people anonymous: we see Adam and Eve, representing humanity, reunited with Christ, the Prototype for humanity. Behind Adam is King David, John the Baptist, and prophets from the Old Testament. Behind Eve are faithful women, queens, and the Virgin Mary. Christ’s saving act, decided upon before the beginning of creation, invites the human race in all its particularity to awaken into its own journey of ascent into the joyful banquet that never ends and, once again, walk with God in the new Paradise of his Kingdom.

Ascension

Scripture tells us that forty days after the Resurrection, Christ invited his disciples and his Mother to the Mount of Olives outside Jerusalem. While they were standing together, suddenly angels appeared and gathered Christ into Heaven. As the crowd watched, trying to figure out what was happening, the angels asked a startling question, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?” (Acts 1:11 ESV).

In the icon, we see the ascending Christ robed in gold and seated on a mystical rainbow in front of a mandorla of blue rings, representing the glory of God. Below Christ, in the middle of it all, stands the Theotokos with her hands outstretched in the traditional position of prayer. Unlike the chastened disciples, who are still waiting to be told what to do next, the Theotokos knows what to do. As once she awaited the birth of her son, she now awaits, in expectant prayer, the birth of the Christian Church. (Indeed, the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost is only ten days away.)

It is interesting to note that while the disciples gaze up, the iconographer has chosen to devote more space to the earthly mountain and its human turbulence than to the heavenly certainty above. In an echo of the Annunciation, here we witness the disciples’ own “moment of doubt,” where the understanding of God’s plan is unclear; they must wait and ponder. They had lived with Christ for three years, witnessing his miracles, hearing his teachings, basking in his presence. Although Christ was crucified and died, he was resurrected—he seemed to return to them. The ascension of Christ signifies, for the disciples, the beginning of a changed relationship with their beloved teacher, one where their desire and memories impel them into apostolic action, which, once again, will bring them into the presence of the One they love.

The viewer’s own gaze cannot help but settle on the bright intensity of the angels, whose faces are focused on the frail humans, yet whose wings and hands gesture insistently toward Christ above.

When you fulfilled the dispensation for our sake and united earth to heaven, you ascended in glory, O Christ our God, not being parted from those who love you, but remaining with them and crying: I am with you and no one will be against you! 

~ Festal Kontakian

Pentecost 
Descent of the Holy Spirit 

After the confusion of the apostles with the ascension of Christ, the Book of Acts tells us that they were gathered together in Jerusalem on the Jewish feast of Pentecost, when “suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house....Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues.” 

A Pentecost hymn declares, “When God distributed the tongues of fire, He called all to unity,” signaling the beginning of the Church and the future fullness of life in God. This gathering of the apostles came to be called the first “anointing of the Church with heavenly fire.” This fire baptism of the apostles corresponds with the liturgical sacrament of anointing all believers with holy chrism, sealing their baptism or new birth with the charisma of Life in the Spirit of God, further deepening the idea of Pentecost being the birth of the Church.

The twelve white rays extending from the blue Holy Trinity orb, the twelve small flames of baptismal spiritual fire above the apostles, and the twelve red “logoi seeds” on the white veil held by the Theotokos are iconographic symbols showing the birth of the Church. The fire vivifies Christ’s teaching, represented by the evangelical scrolls held by the apostles. Fired by the Holy Spirit, the scrolls become seeds of New Testament faith lived through the liturgical life of the Church. 

The ark-shaped veil that the Theotokos holds reminds the viewer that she was the new ark that held Christ. As she was the first to receive the seeds of the incarnation, so too is she the first to receive the seeds from the Holy Spirit. Cinnabar red is the symbol of transfigured fired clay. Notice, too, that the Theotokos is in the same position and stance as in the icon of the Ascension, yet here she holds the “logoi seeds.” The blueness of her pavilion connects with the blue orb in the bright red veil-shaped heavenly opening. The small icon in the orb depicts the same Old Testament Trinity that we saw at the beginning of the exhibit. The descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost signals a new age of God’s interaction with humanity. The Old Testament requirement of sacrifice was fulfilled by Christ’s crucifixion. Humanity’s transfiguration now occurs within the communal life of the Church, uniting all of mankind to God.

Synaxis of the Twelve Apostles

Synaxis means “council or gathering.” This icon celebrates the Church’s yearly commemoration of the twelve apostles as a group, and in this context, the viewer might rightly question the dominance of Christ in the strange distorted color bands surrounding him known as a mandorla. Mandorla is an Italian word that means “almond” and comes from the shape made when two circles overlap. Traditionally, in art, a mandorla is a visual way to represent liminal space, the point at which the material world is interrupted by the mystical world. In Christian iconography, this form is taken to mean something slightly different—it is the mystical place of God’s glory. Though the name of the icon suggests a focus on the twelve apostles, the prominence of Christ in the mandorla is a strong statement that Christ is the center of the Church and the “home” toward which every human being aims, whether they know it or not. Beyond and alongside the pre-eminence of Christ, this complex icon of the Prosopon School holds in tension and balance several opposing forces or paradoxes. 

First, the icon plays with geometry by arranging two pairs of apostles diagonally across from one another, forming an implied Saint Andrew’s cross (X), in addition to the decorative red cross behind Christ. Saints Peter and Paul are regarded as the two principal apostles of the Church, which is considered the earthly manifestation of Christ after his ascension into heaven. Paul’s writings gave the theological scaffolding for the Church, while Peter’s forceful will gave the necessary dynamism to spread the good news of Christ’s resurrection. Saints Thomas and John seem at first an odd pairing. Doubting Thomas needed to touch the wounds of Christ before he would believe that Christ rose from the dead, while John’s gospel faithfully asserts the mystical theology of the Church. Through reflecting on this pairing, however, we come to understand that the discursive, scientific approach to God (Saint Thomas) is as essential as the mystical approach (Saint John), uniting both reason and nous, logic and heart. 

The highly ornamented cross behind Christ has little round images of a bull, a man, a lion, and an eagle. These four images not only represent the four basic elements of ancient times—earth, air, fire, and water—but have also come to represent the four gospel writers—Saints Matthew, Luke, Mark, and John. The cross shape represents the Tree of Life, for through Christ’s voluntary ascent to the Cross, he opened the possibility of eternal life for all humanity. The vertical direction of the cross represents heaven’s light, the instantaneousness of angels, direct apprehension of the spiritual world, and apophatic, or “emptying/negative,” movement toward God. The horizontal direction represents life’s rich colors of joy and sorrow, the material cosmos, and cataphatic, or “filling/positive,” movement toward God. The vertical and horizontal unite all opposites at the center, in Christ, who is eternal love. Within the mandorla, weighted down by the heaviness of the apostles’ struggle to establish the Church, Christ blesses and calls the viewer to join the mystical space of the Church, where the old life of the world is transformed into New Life. 

Triumph of Orthodoxy

How could God squeeze himself into our world and still be God? In what way was Christ both God and man? And what about those who sought to be followers of Christ—if they painted pictures of Christ and venerated them, were they moving toward the mystery of holy communion with God or were they moving away from it, opening themselves to the sins of heresy, idolatry, and pride? Iconoclasm was a century-long violent conflict in Byzantium over these very basic but difficult questions about God. The battle was eventually won by the “iconodules,” those who believed icons were a positive and even necessary element of Christianity. In 843, the Church instituted the annual “Triumph of Orthodoxy” feast day to remind the faithful that the icon or holy image is a fundamental consequence of Christ’s incarnation, and that icons are an integral part of the Orthodox faith. 

Prosopon School founder Vladislav Andrejev observed that most renditions of the festal icon for the Triumph of Orthodoxy did not maximally express the theological implications of the event, but only visually restated the historical facts. In writing this “newly revealed” icon, Andrejev sought not only to testify to the historical event, but also to open up the scene to include a didactic representation of the theological triumph, or real significance, of the icon. This interpretation comes from Andrejev’s practicing of iconography for forty years and prayerful consideration of the writings of the theologians of the Church. 

Christ, the Logos Emmanuel, is the firstborn image of God (Colossians 1:15). Along with the other sacramental actions of Church life, the writing and venerating of icons further incarnate God’s action and testify to the daily necessity of incarnation. In the New Testament, the apostle James says that “Faith without works is dead,” which, from an iconographer’s perspective, could be translated as “faith that does not gain an incarnate image is dead.” In other words, our very actions are the concrete image or icon of faith. Thus, icons testify to a real, touchable, knowable, gritty faith. Without them, faith is ephemeral, transitory, and changeable.

The first register depicts the historical triumph of icons by showing the throngs of faithful in the nave and the clergy inside the altar contemplating and celebrating together the mystery of the incarnation in Divine Liturgy. Through celebrating a communal meal, the “Eucharist,” called the “holy mysteries” in Orthodoxy, the faithful are united and initiated into a loftier participation of the Divine. The tiny Christ (Logos Spermatikos) lying in the chalice is the first of five icons of Christ depicted in the icon’s registers, arranged vertically from earth to the highest reaches of heaven, and begins our lofty ascent. Also, within this register is the second icon, an icon of the Theotokos “oranta,” who prays continually for the Church, for it is through her that the Son of God, the essential image, was enfleshed. 

The second register thematically moves beyond the earthly realm into the heavenly, but still created, realm and shows yet another gathering, this time a formal Synaxis of Archangels. The angels celebrate the Eucharist simultaneously with the people on earth and bow toward the icon of the Logos Emmanuel, Christ. During the Divine Liturgy, the faithful affirm this concelebration by singing the Cherubic Hymn, “Let us, who mystically represent the cherubim and seraphim, sing the thrice-holy hymn to the life-giving trinity, lay aside all earthly cares, that we may receive the King of all, invisibly escorted by the angelic hosts. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.”  

The gold background of the third register symbolizes a still higher and more mystical movement up the ladder into the Kingdom of Heaven. Here, we are brought into the uncreated realm at the throne of God. We behold the Place, or Face of his Presence, personified by the angel Shekinah, a name inherited from Jewish tradition and used by such Church Fathers such as Isaak the Syrian. The angel represents the Glory of the Lord and discloses Christ as Logos, the mystical icon, his hands raised in blessing. 

In the fourth and highest register, the uncreated angels Holy Sophia and Holy Agaphia stand guard holding books that name the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end of all, Jesus Christ. He is the head of the heavenly and earthly Church, and He is the image of all actions depicted below in icons and in faith. We see that the Triumph of Orthodoxy is in fact his triumph. In Christ is gathered all the fullness of the Image (icon/action) of God. Under his great gaze, all ceremonial actions of the Church enact the mystical ladder or path that leads all who seek to grow from the Image into the Likeness of the Logos, the Son of God and Lord Jesus Christ.

The undepictable Word of the Father became depictable when
He took flesh of thee, O Mother of God, and He combined divine beauty with the defiled image, restoring its ancient dignity; and, in confessing our salvation, we express it in word and work.

~ Festal Kontakian

Synaxis of the Archangels

The Synaxis, or “gathering,” of the Archangels is an ancient feast of the Orthodox Church, established in the fourth century. Wrestling with Angels presents a highly unusual compilation of this gathering—a central, individual Logos Emmanuel with wings, hand raised in blessing, who is surrounded by archangels on separate boards. The sweep of archangels’ outer robes encompasses the full scope of the color spectrum, their scrolls speak of “overcoming,” and one cradles a small Logos Emmanuel.

As referenced throughout Wrestling with Angels, the Church Fathers often speak about angels in their ascetic writings, calling them “minds” because human beings need guides to help us “ascend the ladder” of spiritual development — starting on the earth and progressing up to heaven. Echoing the ascetic tradition’s use of the ladder metaphor, the Synaxis presented here meditates on the meaning of color in a similar progression from red earth to undepictable violet heaven. Archangel Jeremiel, who attends the transition into the heavens, holds a small Logos, indicating that it is the Logos who is the goal of the seeker who has overcome many obstacles to arrive at this point. But it is the large, central Logos Emmanuel around which all the angels in this composition gather. In the age to come, not only the heavenly hosts but all the saints will assemble under his gaze and creatively sing his praise.  

Wrestling with Angels is an exhibit of an American school of iconography, located in and speaking to an American audience. Creating this composition of icons was intended to call attention to something the teachers of the Prosopon School encounter in every class: American individualism. American freedom thrives on individual creativity, hard work, and effort, and so too, one’s spiritual life requires creativity, attention, and effort. In a culture predicated on acting alone, the school hopes that each viewer might join the ladder of spiritual ascent, whether with Archangel Michael or Archangel Selaphiel, and come to recognize the Logos Emmanuel within. 

Supreme Commanders of the heavenly hosts, we who are unworthy now beseech you that by your prayers ye protect us under the shelter of the wings of your immaterial glory, guarding us who fervently pray and cry out: Deliver us from adversities, as the leader of the ranks of the powers on high.  

~ Festal Troparian

Logos Emmanuel

This kingly Logos Emmanuel reinforces the Triumph of Orthodoxy. After the years of icon smashing and destruction were finished, the doctrinal implications for iconographers came down to one simple truth: all icons, essentially, represent Christ, the True Image. Icons of other saints reflect Christ because it is Christ’s light shining through the saint that makes them holy. Christ is the center of everything, as the Apostle Paul says, “In him we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28 KJV). 

A core proposition of the Prosopon School is that the process of learning to make icons physically, step-by-step, introduces and engages each student with the True Image, the Logos Emmanuel, God-With-Us. Our awareness of the Logos within us is activated when we notice God’s messengers mirroring and carrying his energy to us, for God longs to be in communion with us. Since the Logos Emmanuel, who is Christ, is the center of every synaxis or gathering of angels, it is an appropriate image for the Prosopon School. By assembling these images on separate boards, the Prosopon School calls our attention to the energetic strength of each angel, particularly the Logos. He is bold, royal, and on the cusp of manhood. Standing in front of this image, the Logos beckons the viewer to engage.

The expressive “presence” of this Logos Emmanuel is based on the mosaics in Kiev, and on the Mid-Pentecost icon of the young Christ teaching the leaders in the synagogue, where the boy, with the confidence of budding manhood, opens up scripture to his elders. It is this type of energy and confidence that speaks not only to an American audience, but universally to those who notice the stirring of the Logos within their own souls. 

It is why the Logos was given wings—to reiterate the energetic movement, confident and bold, active and forceful, ready to ascend the ladder of spiritual journey. The presence of the Logos is summed up movingly by the prophetic words of King David in Psalm 62: “For You are my helper, and in the shelter of Your wings I will greatly rejoice. My soul follows close behind You; Your right hand takes hold of me.”

At the middle of the feast of the Law, O Maker and Master of all, Christ our God, Thou sayest to those who came to it: Come ye and draw the water of immortality; therefore, we fall down before Thee and cry out with faith: Bestow Thy bounties upon us; for Thou art the Well-spring of our life.

  ~ Festal Kontakion

The Burning Bush

Few viewers will hear the phrase the burning bush and not have some mental reference to the Old Testament event in which Moses sees a bush that is on fire with, but not consumed by, the presence of God. Then God’s voice emanates from the fiery bush and directs Moses to lead the Israelites out of their slavery in Egypt. It is a theophany that one might expect to see depicted as an icon in any Orthodox church. 

Yet here, instead of Moses, we see Mary, the Theotokos, with her hands raised in the oranta position of prayer and release. We see Christ, in two different places; we see eight angels painted in the color spectrum of the rainbow; we see an eight-pointed star; and we see lots and lots of wings. What’s going on? 

We can get a clue from Saint Gregory of Nyssa, who writes, “This light did not shine from some luminary among the stars, but came from an earthly bush and surpassed the heavenly luminaries in brilliance. From this we learn also the mystery of the Virgin: The Light of Divinity, which through birth shone from her into human life, did not consume the burning bush, even as the flower of her virginity was not withered by giving birth.”*

To the viewer, then, standing in front of this ornate icon, Mary’s body is the bush on fire with the presence of God, the Logos Emmanuel, who through her physical body is sending Light into the world and declaring to all who will hear the good news of God’s great love. The Theotokos, in a sense, protects and covers the altar table upon which the holy gifts, Christ’s body and blood, are prepared and given to the faithful, multiplying the seed that she carried. To extend the comparison fully, one could say that to stand in front of this icon is to become like Moses, encountering a most mysterious fire. Saint Symeon the New Theologian marvels, “O strange wonder! I am sprinkled with dew and am not burned, as the bush burned of old without being consumed.”

Note how certain details deepen and clarify the mystery: Christ, in the seed-shaped mandorla, is simultaneously within Mary, as the Logos Spermatikos, and above Mary, as the Logos Emmanuel, his wings representing the energy or action of God going out into the world. And the angels, ranged around the Theotokos in colors that form the full spectrum of the rainbow, represent the energy or Light of God incarnated, just like the angels in the earlier Synaxis icons. All eleven figures in the image gaze outward, as if waiting for you, the viewer, to respond, and even the leaves of the two “bushes” (green below and red above) unfurl. Only the pairs of wings hidden in the green star and in the gold background turn inward, withholding for our protection the unseeable, uncreated Truth of a God who yet longs to bring us to himself.

Icon Not Made by Hand 
Mandylion

In the Western Tradition, this image is called Veronica’s veil. When Christ was carrying the Cross to Golgotha, a woman named Veronica (whose name means “true image”) handed the sweating Christ a cloth with which to dry his face. When he handed it back to her, his image was imprinted on the fabric. 

The story in the Eastern Tradition is different: it is said that King Abgar of Edessa, who was sick with leprosy, sent his servant to bring Jesus to heal him. If Jesus refused, his servant was supposed to paint a portrait of Christ. Unable in that moment to go with the servant and knowing that the servant would be unable to paint a portrait because of the transcendent nature of his visage, Christ asked for a cloth to wipe his face. In so doing, the first image of Christ, not made by hands, was imprinted on the cloth. 

This icon is painted on a square board, after the early tenth-century Novgorodian example housed at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. The combination of the shape of the square board, traditionally representative of the created world, and the circle of the halo, traditionally representative of the Divine, symbolizes the mystical union of the material and the Divine worlds, reminding the viewer that Christ was both fully God and fully man. 

Iconographically, this icon is unusual in that there is no square “napkin” behind the face. Instead, triangular rays extend to the four corners of the board, reminiscent of the Christ Enthroned icon in which four rays extend outward from a seated royal Christ. These rays represent the idea that God’s glory goes out into all the creation, both visible and invisible, permeating all of reality. Within the rays of this icon are the letters NI KA, which is the Greek word for “victor,” and the letters IC XC, which are the Greek abbreviations for the name “Jesus Christ.” Both letter sets are more commonly seen on the festal icon of the Crucifixion, reminding the viewer of Christ’s physical victory over death through the Resurrection. By nestling the phrases within the outward extending rays of Divinity, the iconographer yet again references the two natures of Christ, and declares that the impact of Christ’s incarnation extends in time and space, in physical and mystical reality. 

In this age, it is the Church that expresses the ever-extending rays of Christ’s Divinity, the truth that pierces all reality. “He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent” (Colossians 1:13 ESV).

Christ the Teacher, Theotokos, Guardian Angel, Icon Corner 

For lay Orthodox believers who are not priests or monastics, the step-by-step work of spiritual life, anagogy, occurs largely at home and work, through prayer. The home is considered a mini church, so all Orthodox Christians have icons in their homes, and even on their desk at work, in their cars, and in suitcases when they travel—for them, prayer happens all the time. Most importantly, each home has an “icon corner” or room, the spiritual center, where the family gathers for prayers, often before or after meals, and throughout the day. Because the family is considered a microcosm of the Church, with Christ as its head, this “Beautiful Corner” will usually have at least one icon of Christ. 

A family might decorate the corner with a cloth embroidered with the patterns and colors for each church feast: red for Nativity, green for Transfiguration, blue for feasts of the Theotokos (Mary). Icon cards might lean against larger icons as well as blessed flowers, candles, prayer books, and various remembrances from pilgrimages. It is an active place of prayer with lit candles and incense that need tending throughout the day.

When young couples marry in the Orthodox Christian tradition, they will ask a slightly older married couple to be their “wedding sponsors.” The sponsoring couple holds marriage crowns over the heads of the couple during the wedding procession and promises to pray daily for the couple. Either the couple’s parents or the sponsors will give the couple a wedding icon, which is blessed on the church altar during the wedding ceremony and stays with the couple for the duration of their married life. In addition to the wedding icons, the new family will collect meaningful icons of their name saints or saints that have become important to their family over time. 

The most basic icon corner will almost always include an icon of Christ, an icon of the Theotokos, and an icon that represents something personally meaningful to the household. Here, the iconographer chose to add the guardian angel because of the verse in Psalms 91:11, “For to His angels he has given command about you, to guard you in all your ways.” As we have seen, angels are messengers from God; and this guardian angel holds a small linen-wrapped figure, which symbolizes the body of our soul being protected by God. The Book of Wisdom says, “The souls of the righteous are in the Hands of God.”

Saint Patrick 

The home altar, known as the “icon corner,” in addition to bearing icons of Christ and the Theotokos, will usually include icons of the saints whose name one shares, or saints to which someone in the family has a special attachment, such as this icon of Saint Patrick. Most recognized as a Western (Catholic) saint, Patrick may also be venerated in an Orthodox home, since he is a saint in both the Eastern and Western churches. 

As much as possible, home icons are placed on the eastern wall of each room, physically reminding the family that Christ is the “Dayspring” and “Sun of Righteousness.” Many families will hang icons of Archangel Michael or Gabriel, the first two archangels, who protect against Satan and announce the good news of salvation. Babies kiss the icons before going to bed. Adults pray before icons in private. Families face the icons when blessing the food on the table. Icons participate in the life of the family and the family lives life in front of the icon, thus Orthodox Christians would consider the icons in the home to be the active presence of the saint depicted. 

This Prosopon icon incorporates many elements that bring Saint Patrick’s unique qualities to mind. The book he holds, for example, contains the beginning of the Lorica, a prayer attributed to him. “I bind unto myself the strong name of the Trinity…Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of Me.” By looking to Christ, through the saint, the beholder enters the place of peace that is above political strife. Since Saint Patrick was a strong defender of the Trinity, the background of the icon has a shamrock motif, which he used as a metaphor for the Trinity. The shamrock has three parts but is one, just as the Trinity is one God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The upper portion of the background has a Celtic knotwork design, which is a tribute to Saint Patrick’s work of converting the pagan Celts to Christianity in what is now Ireland. Early missionaries, such as Saint Patrick, integrated local customs into Christian liturgy, allowing each culture to hymn the true God with its distinctive voice.

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ within me.
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye that sees me,
Christ in the ear that hears me.

~ Excerpt from “The Breastplate of St. Patrick, of Ireland.”

Saint Luke 
Proto-Iconographer

In this traditional Orthodox icon we see Saint Luke, the first iconographer and author of the Gospel according to Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, making his own icon of the most Holy Theotokos. Above him, a large red veil marks the scene as a mystical event, the place where heavenly energies interact with earthly, material experience. By its very nature, a mystical event overwhelms our human understanding—we apprehend with our human faculties something that we cannot comprehend with our rational minds. Behind Saint Luke, an angel called the Angel of the Countenance of God blesses and guides the work. In front of Luke stands the Theotokos, within whom the Logos Spermatikos can be seen; both figures raise their hands, one in blessing and the other in prayer. 

Luke was a Syrian physician from Antioch who became a disciple of Saint Paul. Luke’s gospel is not an eyewitness account of Christ, but with a physician’s precision, his writings give great detail about Christ’s life, making his gospel one of the most visual. In fact, Tradition calls Luke the Proto-Iconographer because he is said to have painted the first icon, an image of the Theotokos holding the Christ child, also called Hodigitria, which is the small icon in Saint Luke’s hand. (The viewer can see that Luke is not copying down the image of Mary who stands before him. She is a guiding presence rather than a model.) There are four extant icons attributed to Saint Luke; the most famous is the Virgin of Vladimir, housed in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. 

The eight-pointed star etched in the halo of the angel, along with the angel’s name in red letters, tells us this is an “uncreated” angel. The eight-pointed star represents the “Eighth Day,” a concept from Holy Scripture that references life after the end of the created world. An eight-pointed star in a halo means the bearer of the halo is uncreated because the eighth day has not yet happened. The Uncreated Angel—in other words, God’s presence—is guiding the hand of Saint Luke. For an iconographer, this icon of Saint Luke visually expresses the action of God working through the hand and person whose ego is absent so that all glory belongs to God.

Sophia 
Holy Wisdom

In every Orthodox Church service, the priest calls out, “Sophia, let us attend!” Sophia means “wisdom” in Greek, and the Old Testament Book of Proverbs personifies Wisdom as a woman, crying in the streets her warnings against foolishness and sin. She is, according to the Book of Wisdom, “a spirit intelligent, holy, unique...she penetrates and pervades all things by reason of her purity. She is the refulgence of eternal light, the spotless mirror of the power of God, the image of his goodness.” And, in the New Testament, we are told that “Christ is...the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24).

In iconography, the image of Sophia is a regal, fire-like, “uncreated” angel. In this Prosopon icon, Sophia stands on an ark, representing the chalice, which is the dimension of the outpouring of God’s love. In her right hand, Sophia holds the seven-branched candlestick, linking this angel not only to Christ (who holds the seven churches in Revelation) but also to the altar table. In her left hand, she holds the communion cup, the chalice of life-giving mysteries.

On the ark we see four humans: Adam and Eve; Mary, the Theotokos; and Saint John the Baptist. These four represent the beginning and end of the Old Testament person prior to God becoming man in the person of Jesus Christ. During this era, Sophia called out to exercise virtue and repentance. Adam and Eve, who walked in Paradise, remind us of the fall, while Saint John the Baptist represents the greatest person of the Old Testament because of his call to repentance, and Mary, the Theotokos, represents the yearning of Old Testament wisdom patiently awaiting revelation. Through Christ, who is the wisdom of God, humanity is offered a new saving path, which we find in this era, in his Church. 

Sophia is the energy of the Creator, helping form the Church on earth. She symbolizes Christ’s invisible presence among his people, the Church. And it is through discerning the angelic energy of Wisdom that the believer, already integrating Old Testament virtues, begins to incarnate the New Testament commandment of Life-Giving Love.

Hesychia 
Angel of Blessed Silence

Starting with the traditional images of Christ, who is God incarnate, the Orthodox faith delights in revealing and uncovering spiritual realities that are present but unrecognized, or perhaps unnamed, in ordinary human experience. Prayerful silent stillness is one such reality; in this icon, holy silence (in Greek, hesychia) is accorded the form of an angel. 

As this icon is relatively common in both Russia and Greece, it is fair to ask, is this angel merely a metaphor for holy silence? The Prosopon School would say that the task of iconography is to find the correct symbolic form of God’s presence; finding an adequate symbol includes but goes beyond linear reasoning about God in that it proposes the contemplation of God’s presence. The symbolism of an icon can in this way reacquaint us with the light of Christ within us. 

The eight-pointed star in the halo with the Greek letters o ωή indicates that this is not an ordinary angel, but an “uncreated” angel acting as a veil and preparatory place, standing at the gate of the transition of our faith, the turning point, from a discursive state into a more mystical state. Here, in silence, is the place of beginnings, of virginal quiet. It is also a place of tension, the gathering of silence before the energetical movement into the action of true prayer. In the moment before any great activity, when all the preparation, meditation, and practice have been completed, there is an inhalation, a poverty. This is hesychia—the reunification of the heart with the nous in total stillness. A hesychast keeps his mind on Heaven and his heart on earth, silent in himself, yet filled with theology. 

A sphere banded with multiple colors rests in the angel’s hands, which are crossed in the silence of open receptivity. The sphere holds the Logos Emmanuel, whose hands are raised in blessing. As seen earlier, the sphere represents sacred space, and the colored bands of the mandorla are the indescribable Divinity proceeding out of mystical space, becoming more and more visible. The now-active seed of the Logos opens within the believer the moment of silence, shedding all thought, preparing the way for the penetration of the Spirit of God in the heart of the believer.

Image of the Life-Creating Trinity 
New Testament Trinity

This Image of the Life-Creating Trinity is also called “New Testament Trinity.” When this icon is juxtaposed with the Image of the Holy Trinity, “Old Testament Trinity,” one can see many differences. Here there are no symbolic buildings, trees, or mountains, the robes on the angels are different, the angels are wearing red shoes, the wings are more elaborate, the entire icon is much more decorative, but mainly, the table shape is different, and instead of the cup with a bloody ox, there is an image of Christ Emmanuel in a red circle.

The Orthodox Church Fathers speak of a “Great Council” before all time, where God decreed the creation of the world, the creation of humanity, and the salvation of humanity. This icon extends the arc of these decrees and depicts the ultimate stage of the journey—the future Divinization of mankind. It is a council of Divine Liturgy where the bloodless sacrifice unites mankind to God. Salvation is the first, not final, step. Christian doctrine teaches that man is made in the Image of God and grows into his Likeness, thereby uniting with God. This New Testament Trinity is about the presence of Divine Light in man, the penetration of that Light for all of eternity, and the final union of God with his people. 

The New Testament council is the joyful, exuberant party of the Eighth Day, the mystical day of completion, the end of the journey of spiritual ascent. It is life within the feast given by the Life-Giving Trinity. Accordingly, the perspective in the icon is spherical, “universal”— it is as if it is the perspective of God, who is infinite and can see everything simultaneously. The decorative patterns are interwoven and repetitive, the table is not “flat” but lifted up, and none of the angles are correct from a rational point of view. The angels are wearing red shoes—the scarlet slippers of royalty—instead of sandals. The robes are the appropriate Eighth-Day colors for each angel: the Father, whose stable will is revealed in Glory, is in gold and blue; the Son now wears a bright red robe, which signifies perfect, transfigured man; and the Spirit’s green robe represents Life-Giving Love. 

In the center of the table is a figure we’ve seen before, the Logos Spermatikos, Logos Emmanuel, God-With-Us, who takes away the sins of the world. It is the activated, growing Logos who leads the believer into the great banquet hall of the Kingdom of God. And here now we can begin to understand the prayer of Saint Basil the Great: “May we not fall away into sloth, but take courage and, being roused to action, be found ready and enter into the joy and the Divine bride-chamber of his glory, where the voice of those that feast is never silent, and the delight of those that behold the inexpressible beauty of thy countenance passeth all telling; for thou art the true Light that enlighteneth and sanctifieth every manner of thing, and thee doth every creature hymn. Amen.”