“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness but have the light of life” (Jn 8:12), says the Lord Jesus. It is only in the purifying light of God that we see light and become full of light. “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light” (Matt. 6:22). The Christian believer who abides in the light is empowered to discern true reality. Only when spiritual vision is renewed is the Divine Light of the Holy Trinity is it possible to move and act in accordance with the Truth. Even more so, the person being illumined goes beyond merely acting in accordance with Truth, indeed, they move into abiding in Truth. The continual incarnation of Truth – through and in the the Body of Christ – to this world is only possible through the all revealing Light of the Holy Trinity: “For with Thee is the fountain of life, and in Thy light we see light.”ⁱ Outside of the Light of the Trinity there is only darkness.

When persons within the Church cease to lustrate their eyes in the brilliant energy of God they fall into darkness, and this darkness is great and of the worst kind. “But if your eye be bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If the light that is in you is darkness, how great the darkness” (Matt. 6:23)! When the inner eyes of a person are cut off from God, such a one is no longer able to discern true reality; it is then that the shadows of this fallen world are taken for reality. When this happens to Christians, the result is devastating – institutionalism is used to supplant the vital essence of true Life in Christ; Christian activity is reduced to externals.ⁱⁱ The inner eyes (nous) become blinded by darkness and are cast into the abyss of existing in non-reality, the corruptible things of this world are elevated and given preeminence over the heavenly eternal things. True vision is lost and an inversion ensues. Externals are valued above the inner chamber of the heart. Bricks and mortar are counted above the mystical Body. This is the result of the eyes of the heart ceasing to focus on Christ Jesus, and becoming fixated on this temporal world. “Where your heart is, there your treasure will be also” (Matt. 6:21). Christianity then becomes but a power structure of this world, and in doing so it becomes a lifeless corpse, no matter how it dresses up.

In the early 700’s a loss of vision steadily arose in the form of a heresy known as Iconoclasm. Iconoclasm is against all pious depiction of Christ Jesus, the Theotokos, and any saint. Thus, it taught in basic that icons, and the veneration of them, were indeed idolatry. This teaching was divinely repudiated in the Church through the 7^th Ecumenical Council of 787AD, and then culminating in what is known as the Triumph of Orthodoxy in 843AD. Iconoclasm represents the sad loss of the true revelation of salvation as it relates to both man and the whole material world. It could be that the historical events of those times, such as the rise of Islam and the growing gap between the Eastern and Western Christianity, provided a context for the Iconoclasts of that time to take their eyes off of Christ. It is not uncommon that even when we are tested, we focus on the storm around us and cease gazing on Christ. In testing, if one fails to refocus on Christ the former true vision may be darkened by unbelief. Whatever the reasons may have been, the rejection of icon betrays a tragic loss of true vision and reality.

One of the many characteristics of the icon is the fact that it is a herald of true reality. It is a focal point reflecting the sanctification of man and the material world through the Divine Incarnation. “Holiness is the realization of the possibilities given to man by the Divine Incarnation, an example to us: the icon is the means of the revealing this revelation … In other words, the icon transmits visually the realization of the patristic formula … ‘God became man so that man should become god.'”ⁱⁱⁱ Redeemed mankind, when dwelling in the reality of transformation into the image of Christ, through the community of the Church, is able by grace to take up the sensible and material and imbue it once again with true vision and substance. This created material world through the redemptive work of Christ may once again fully achieve its original intent: to be an instrument and conductor for the glory of God. Icon is Adam rightly using paradise. St. John of Damascus writes: “I reverence the rest of matter and hold in respect that through which my salvation came, because it is filled with divine energy and grace.”^iv

The icon becomes the most potent example of the redeemed material cosmos. It presents to mankind a clear vision of revelation, and through God’s material creation portrays those things which are everlasting and real. The Heavenly is above the earthly. Icon does not exist in the place of Christ and His holy ones, rather it exists because of them and through them. The reality is: this world is even now being penetrated by the eternal – death, sin and corruption are no longer lords over mankind and creation. If we find them still ruling, it is because we ourselves have willingly returned to slavery under them. The icon cries out: “Death is swallowed up in victory. O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory” (1 Cor 15:54-55)? It stands as an invitation for all to enter into true reality and being. This entails rejecting the call and temptation of this fallen world to live in a state of non-being by following one’s own carnal desire and thereby choosing the non-existence of falsehood. For to dwell outside of the revealed divine reality is to dwell away from God, Who is Life and the true I AM.

Iconoclasm, the rejection of icons, is the result of a loss of true divine vision and reality. Iconoclasm can be manifest in the brute form of outright destruction of icons, or it also appears in a more nuanced form. This form does not destroy the material image itself but rather destroys the vision and theology that are a vital fabric of icon. Tragically, the western world was heavily impacted by the Iconoclast spirit after initially being a champion of the icon. If any segment of Christianity begins to desire and focus on earthly power and prestige, the end result is a loss of heavenly vision. The rise of Charlemagne in the 700’s in the west may be considered a point that begins to mark this decline of vision. At the “council” of Frankfurt in 794AD Charlemagne opened the door for attack and condemnation on holy icons. Although, this condemnation is said to be based on a mistranslation of the Greek text of the 7^th Ecumenical Council. The misunderstanding of icon and subsequent condemnation (informed or uninformed) by Charlemagne and his council is one of the turning points that began to orientate the West away from a Christian vision.

Only six years later, in 800AD, the Pope of Rome crowned Charlemagne as the “holy Roman Emperor.” Of course, the events surrounding this are varied and complex, but it may be considered as one of the beginnings of the end spiritually for the Western Church.^v This loss became increasingly evident in the artistic vision of the West. The Iconoclast spirit of Charlemagne^vi paved the way for the massive shift of vision which eventually occurred in the Renaissance, as art began to take on a much greater naturalistic feel, and subsequent progressions. This naturalism in religious art began to dominate the Western Church, reflecting the loss of divine sight in the West.^vii Divine things were presented as naturalism. “To destroy icons means to block up the windows; it means smearing the glass and weakening the spiritual light of those of us who otherwise could see it directly.^viii”

The Reformation and Enlightenment dealt a further blow to the sacred Christian vision in the icon. Art, in the west, became obsessed with naturalism, many times “raw to the point of repellency,” easily stirring carnal emotions.^ix A couple of evident examples are “The Crucifixion” by Grunewald, where Christ is portrayed as writhing in pain and agony, His flesh bloated and twisted. The overall effect is that of hopelessness and the victory of death; the sweet hope of immortality as traditionally imaged in ancient Christian icons is nowhere present. True reality is replaced with false reality, transcendent true image is bound to the limited horizon of temporal existence. Holbein the Younger’s portrayal of Christ’s rotting flesh in the the tomb denies the fundamental ancient Christian belief that Christ’s body was a stranger to corruption. The picture proclaims – Christ is not the victorious God-Man and King but a mortal man subject to the decay and stench of death. With the loss of true theology and understanding of sacred vision, spiritual ascent in western art ceased. Image, or we may say art, ceased to be a means to elevate man’s vision to everlasting things and rather became a mode by which to reproduce nature as man’s limited and fallen senses perceived it. And even more tragically, subject the eternal and Divine to these confines. Art in the West fell from being a symbol of eternity. The West “freed” art from the bonds of Truth and chained it to the baseness of fallen humanity and its whims. Art then eventually became a “luxury” and not an essential aspect of human life, and most of all Christian faith and living. At current, we live in a truly artless age of mass production, disposable products, and strictly utilitarian ascendancy. Beauty is rarely found in the heart of modern man, and therefore he rarely is able to create beauty around him, as man once was more than capable of doing.

After the Reformation, many of the traditional symbols used in sacred art were done away with, and portrayal of the holy struggle of the saints for the kingdom of heaven ceased to a great degree. All these outer manifestations act to reveal the West’s shifting of the eyes of the soul from the heavenly age to the fallen material world. Protestant-dominated northern European art, for the most part, left all religious subjects and simply portrayed daily life, giving way to the humanist undercurrent that helped propel the Reformation.^x Some leaders of the Reformation, such as John Calvin, were outright iconoclastic in their dealings with religious art, as were the Anabaptists. This laid firm foundations for the recurrence of “anti-aestheticism in Western art” and paved the way for a “decline of Christian imagery in the Protestant Church.”^xi Today this is very evident in Protestant architecture which varies very little from big-box stores and strip-malls with almost completely sterile and barren interiors, in which one is lucky to find even a cross. They reflect no Christian beauty or culture whatsoever but rather are enslaved to whatever the base and artless dictates of the times hold forth. Their eyes are set on the standard of the fallen world around them, and it is reflected accordingly. The Western Church, once a champion of the icon while the Iconoclast heresy raged in the East, tragically became the place where the Iconoclast spirit found fertile ground to thrive. Both the over humanizing of Christian art themes and the outright destruction of religious art are symptoms of Iconoclasm, for in both of them true icon is abolished. Art no longer had as its lofty goal the imaging of that which transcends man, rather man and visible nature become the new standard of image. Iconoclasm in its essence is a denial of true Christian vision. It is the reduction of vision to only that which is “natural” in the eyes of fallen man – that which can be measured, counted, and weighed; effectively inhibiting man from ever going beyond the things of this passing world. Without true Icon, there can be no true Christianity. Once Christianity in the West began to lose its iconographic vision, it was only a matter of time that the mundane would follow along, and then out pace it, and then eventually drag it along behind it.

In our days, as throughout all time, enlightenment by Christ is contingent upon a person having ears to hear and eyes to see. Those who were exposed to Christ Jesus in His earthly ministry were not automatically illumined; they had to desire this in their heart. So the icon, as with its prototype Jesus Christ, the Icon of the Father, is not mechanical illumination. The icon is not a vulgar intrusion into each person’s mental world; it is an invitation to see reality. It forces itself on no one; it only seeks those who have eyes to see. True vision is possible only in the light of Christ, outside of which is only darkness. The icon is the crown of healed sensible vision gazing on the eternal light that permeates material creation even here and now. Icon is a fundamental Christian confession and proclamation. Therefore it is imperative, if a person is to truly understand the icon they must begin with the cleansing of the eyes of the heart, and this occurs in the Light of the Trinity Who is Truth. Outside of this light man’s vision becomes darkened by the fallen world and this becomes his focus and aim, even in the “religious” realm. This focus on the fallen world eventually degrades into it ultimate end – the bizarre; naturalism is overrun by the abstract delusions of sinful distortion. Fragmentation and deformity become the goals of art and are promoted as “freedom.” Turmoil is then offered as the new artistic vision, one that reflects the spiritual blindness of modern man – which is the end result of the loss of iconographic vision.

The icon makes luminous Christ the Lord, for Christ Jesus is true reality. If one chooses to dwell outside of Truth, which is manifest in the Holy Orthodox Church, that one cannot truly understand the icon, even if such a one appreciates it. It will forever elude and either remain a piece of art history or a tantalizing and intriguing religious artifact.

iVerse from the Doxology. Orthodox Daily Prayers, p. 45. St Tikhon’s Seminary Press, South Canaan, 2008.

ii“Institution of the Church” is used to differentiate from the Body of the Church. Institution is an aspect of the Church in this earth, but it is not the vital part. It remains whole and good as long as it is being feed by the essential Life of Christ in His Body, but the institution has no life of itself, when Church life is reduced to institution, it withers and dies. At times the outer shell has been preserved by false men while inside the inner life has been squandered. Thus, although at times the outer institution fell to false teachings and false alliances, the living organism of the Church never has. In this sense one can safely say the Church is without heresy or fault.

iiiOuspensky, Leonid. The Meaning of Icons, pp. 36-37, St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, Crestwood, 1994.

ivSt. John of Damascus. On the Divine Images, p. 29, St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, Crestwood, 2003.

v Charlemagne (768-814) fabricated this disappearance of the Roman Empire and its Civilization in order to solve a family problem. His grandfather, Charles Martel (715-741), had finally suppressed Gallo-Roman revolutions in the battles of Poitiers and Provence in 732 and 739, which were supported by Arabs and Numidian Romans who, together with the Spanish Romans, had recently overthrown the Goths in Spain (711-719). The Numidian Romans were under the command of Constantinople’s governor of Mauritania in Ceuta. Another Gallo-Roman revolution was suppressed by Charlemagne’s father and uncle in 742, the year he was born.

Charlemagne had to find a way to break the religious and cultural unity between his own enslaved Romans and the Roman Empire which now extended from parts of Italy to the frontiers of Persia. He devised a plan to convince his subjugated Romans that the Papal States, called Romania and Res Publica Romana, under his family’s control since 756, was all that was left of the Roman Empire. The rest of the Empire would become “heretical” and therefore a hateful “Greece”, inhabited not by Romans, but by “Greeks”, and headed not by an Emperor of the Romans, but by an Emperor of “Greeks”. The Franks called the Empire Roman for the last time in their Libri Carolini which attack the Empire as pagan and heretical. The Franks then decided by their Council of Frankfurt in 794 to give the names Graeci to the free Romans and Graecia to free Romania. This became Franco-Latin customary law. Fr. John Romanides http://www.romanity.org/htm/rom.23.en.the_sainthood_of_common_criminals.01.htm

viCharlemagne argued primarily for only the didactic value of religious images; although this is a feature of the icon, to restrict its value to this sphere is to stifle the mystical reality of the icon.

vii This is not a comment on artistic mastery, but on the underlying spiritual focus.

viiiFlorensky, St. Pavel. Iconostasis, p. 63, St Vladimir Seminary Press, Crestwood, 2000.

ixCf. Kontoglou, Photios. The Hopelessness of Death in the religious art of the West, and the Peace and Hope of Orthodox Iconography, p. 11, Article, 1961.

xCf. Catholic Encyclopedia http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12700b.htm

xi Wisse, Jacob, The Reformation, In Timeline of Art History, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/refo/hd_refo.htm