A Very Byzantine Journey

Discovering the New Testament Story through Icons and Pilgrimage

J. Richard Smith

• Publisher: Sacristy Press
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781789592177
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Religious Art

From the earliest days of the Church, Christians have used icons—images of Christ—to engage with the story of their faith. However, icons are far more than ancient pictures of Jesus: they are windows on the holy and transcendental, and they tell the New Testament story in a way that makes it real even to those exploring it from a distance.

Knowing that this is a story based in geographical fact, J. Richard Smith has visited many of the places where the New Testament story happened, and here he takes us along on his travels tracing the story of icons, to places like Jerusalem, Athens, Istanbul and Cairo, and also to the final resting place of the Cloth of Edessa hidden in the hills in southern Italy. Combining spiritual writing, art history and travelogue, J. Richard Smith invites us to discover that there is more to icons than meets the eye.

1

Iconographic art: its history and inner meaning

Icons have long been a much-disparaged art form, frequently maligned by art critics in the West. Orthodox religious art has been considered somehow inferior to what had developed in the West. The comparison is always made with Renaissance art, particularly Italian altar pieces. At first sight, the Eastern Orthodox versions of the various themes seem primitive at best. This is, however, to misunderstand the meaning behind the icons, literally. Why I say “literally, behind” is that they all deliberately have reverse perspective, the reason for which is that the true message is not in the picture but behind it. Most religions decry the use of imagery in search of the holy. In Islam, there are no images of the Prophet, in Judaism there is no image of Yahweh, and in the Presbyterian Church likewise there are no images; the message is in the word. Much of this originates with the turmoil which followed from Israelites’ worship of the Golden Calf.

Of course, music and singing are appropriate in all the traditions: the rich contribution of Bach I will touch on later.

Byzantine art tried to solve this conundrum by adopting reverse perspective so that the image itself was not important, but what lay behind the image. There also was a tradition that all iconographic images could be copied since they were religious rather than commercial, and the artist never signed the piece. Traditionally icons are painted by monks, who work prayerfully to create the images.

There is also the concept, which we will explore later, of the image “not made by human hands”. One can only speculate, but the Cloth of Edessa and the Shroud of Turin must have been perceived as being of inestimable value to the early Christians. However, death cloths are ritually unclean to Jewish people, and one must remember that all the disciples, Jesus’ original followers and Jesus himself were Jewish. This must have created great difficulties for those early Christians and probably would have led to great secrecy surrounding the cloths.

The Catholic Church has tried to distance itself from the conjecture that continues over the Cloth of Edessa. Pope Benedict XVI, a man of discernment and a great theologian, declared it to be authentic as far as he was concerned.

Renaissance art was regarded as devotional and became progressively more beautiful, which of course led to greater appreciation of the art over the message. It played a small part in the causes of the Reformation, and although it was only small, when the Reformation came many images were destroyed. Ironically, by its simplicity, iconographic art has continued to thrive until modern times. If you are ever in doubt about the artistic talents of the earlier painters, you only need to look at the work of the Cretan artist El Greco, who painted both icons and “normal” art for the King of Spain. Also, Andrei Rublev, whilst strictly iconographic, demonstrated enormous sensitivity in the subjects he painted.

Most of ancient Western art is centred around religion, which I know drove my somewhat atheistic daughter Victoria mad on her History of Art degree course. “Too much Jesus, Dad!” What did she expect?

It is difficult to know when icon painting first started, but St Luke is attributed as the earliest iconographer. I have seen an icon attributed to him that resides in a side chapel in the monastery of Iviron, on Mount Athos. It is of course impossible to know whether it really was painted by St Luke, but it demonstrates that the iconographic tradition probably dates from the very earliest days of Christianity. The fact that these two cloths—the Cloth of Edessa and the Shroud of Turin—lay, well-guarded and secret, in the Chapel of the Imperial Byzantine Emperor’s palace, would also go some way to explain the Byzantine love of the medium. This lasted until the first iconoclasm between AD 726 and 787; the second iconoclasm was between 814 and 842. At both times, the Emperors Leo III and Leo V declared that all icons were in effect graven images and should be destroyed. As always with this type of religious edict feelings ran very high and much blood was shed. Most icons before this date were destroyed, only a few surviving in out-of-the-way places, such as the monastery of St Catherine in Sinai, where there are many. It is thought that the number of icons preceding this date can be counted in tens.

I had the great privilege many years ago to meet Fr Vito Borgia, at the time in his late eighties. My then-wife Deborah and I were on holiday in Malta with the family and had decided that the two of us, without the children, would visit the Cathedral of St John in Valetta. We had worried that the children might be too noisy, but on entering the very splendid and beautiful cathedral there was unfortunately a terrible racket from the thousands of tourists, even in the areas where silence was demanded. It felt as if God had gone out for the afternoon! We left the cathedral after looking round and wandered around the corner to find the church, Our Lady of Damascus. This was a beautiful little church built in the Greek tradition with an iconostasis of many icons, including a particularly beautiful one behind the altar. We returned to our hotel, but I was keen to go back to, slightly naughtily, take some photos at a later date.

Sure enough, the opportunity arose a few days later when we were all in Valetta, and Madeleine, at the time a baby, was in a backpack on my back. I arrived at the church, but to get my camera out of the backpack, I had to take it off, always a delicate manoeuvre, then hoist pack and child back on to my back. As I did this, I noticed an elderly priest looking down on me from a first-floor window. I entered the church and was about to take a photo when I heard the noise of footsteps to the side of the altar and the priest appeared though a side door. I quickly pocketed my camera without being caught or for that matter taking any photos. The priest was absolutely charming and introduced himself, and then gave me and my baby daughter a guided tour of his church. He blessed both Madeleine and me and allowed us behind the iconostasis to see the icon more closely. I said to him, “Surely we are not allowed behind the iconostasis?” In Greece, no women or children were allowed such access; it was usually limited to the clergy. This was when he pointed out that he was Roman Catholic but practising the Greek rites, since his church predated the Schism between Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. His icon had been brought to Malta from Damascus to save it from destruction and thus predated the iconoclasm. In AD 843, the situation was reversed by the Emperor Michael III and his mother, the Empress Theodora, who changed the Edict. Icons were restored.

The iconographic tradition continued in the territories of the Byzantine Empire. After the adoption of Orthodoxy by the Russians, the tradition also flowered there and across all the Slavic lands. In the Holy Republic of Mount Athos, all the Orthodox countries have their monasteries, or sketes. I have stayed at the Romanian skete of Prodromou (John the Baptist) and visited the Russian monastery of St Panteleimon, as well as many of the Greek monasteries.

The tradition is certainly very much alive and thriving today across the traditional Orthodox world but also in the UK and USA. Aidan Hart is probably the UK’s foremost icon painter, and he is passing this tradition on via his books and classes. HRH, The Prince of Wales has also been a big supporter of these classes, which help to spread the tradition.

The Rublev Icon of the Trinity

Rublev’s Trinity shows the angels representing the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Ghost as they appeared to Abraham and his wife Sarah at the oaks of Mamre (Genesis 18:1–15). Although poor, they prepared a feast for the travellers, not realizing who they were. And despite their old age, they became parents of a son.

Hesychastic monks were and are practised in inner prayer. This is well described in the book The Philokalia, a collection of texts written by the hesychastic practitioners of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The Philokalia was translated into English by Philip Sherrard and Metropolitan Kallistos Ware between 1979 and 1995. There is a single-volume, shortened version of the Philokalia, which makes for an excellent basic understanding; the level I am at, at very best.

An excellent introduction to hesychasm is also found in a book of unknown authorship, The Way of a Pilgrim, which, some have speculated, may have been written by Tolstoy. In it, an unfortunate man who is disabled, then widowed, then rendered homeless by his brother, becomes a wanderer. He is desperate to learn how to pray. Eventually on his travels he meets a monk, a Starets, who becomes his spiritual teacher, and he suggests that he follow St Paul’s instruction, namely “to pray without ceasing”. He is taught the Jesus Prayer or The Prayer of the Heart, the repetition of “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner”. By learning how to pray in this way, as well as being part of regular religious life, the wanderer discovers inner peace and the ability to avoid daily distractions from his spiritual life.

By understanding the mystical Christian route to inner silence, one then understands how the monks who created the iconographic images sought to represent the spiritual rather than the physical. The spiritual life has been compared to stepping into another room which you have not seen before: finding the kingdom of God in such a way is the pearl beyond price.

The iconographic image originated in the Graeco-Roman tradition, but we know that the original portraits which resemble icons are known as Fayum portraits. These were produced in the Egyptian desert at the Fayum oasis, where it is thought an Essene community existed. Jesus himself was thought to be part of the Essene community based above the Dead Sea at Qumran.

In the same tradition, the Church Fathers also settled in the Egyptian desert, following the example of St Anthony, who sought complete solitude in prayer. From these early monastic foundations, it is likely that what became Celtic Christianity was exported from Egypt to Ireland, and thence to Scotland, then down through Lindisfarne and northern England, moving further south with St Chad in Lastingham and Lichfield and then across the Channel to Europe.

It is therefore likely that these exquisitely peaceful images resulted from an amalgam of these ideas. However, the Hellenic Platonic ideas of hierarchy within the spiritual world were also brought into play. As you can see on the diagrams on page 15, the clear correlation of Platonic cosmology and its later Christian version are striking. Like Platonism, Christianity sees the world on different levels: the Divine, the Hand of God, Light, Angels, Christ/Virgin Mary/Saints, Man, The Ground (Earth), The lower world, and finally the Kingdom of Darkness (cave).

There is a small crescent at the top of the image which represents the Divine; if you mentally continue the crescent to make an invisible circle, it is much larger than the whole picture. The Hand of God is then visible, delivering celestial light. The angels sit at this level, below which is the enthroned Christ, the Virgin Mary and the Saints.

Below these is Man and he rests upon the Ground. (Christ, the Virgin and Saints never have their feet on the ground.) The ground is where unspiritually developed man resides; then below all of this is the Kingdom of Darkness.

Scheme showing the three stages of man in the universe according to Plato

Diagram of the universe according to Christian cosmology

Patmos showing the Cave of the Apocalypse and the Monastery of St John the Divine on the horizon

The Nativity of Christ

The cave is a common theme: Christ was born in a cave; St John had his revelation in a cave.

In all icons, angels always look up to the Divine; Christ, the Virgin and the Saints are looking at us with great inner peace, and men are usually represented as involved in spiritual struggle. The Earth is represented by a rocky landscape and the Cave is the place of spiritual darkness.

Of course, part of the cleverness is that there is always a dual hidden message. The icon shows an image of ...

Table of contents

• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• The author
• The photographer
• The travelling companions
• Introduction
• 1. Iconographic art: its history and inner meaning
• 2. Sindology
• 3. Constantinople—Istanbul
• 4. Rome and Manoppello
• 5. Cairo
• 6. Palestine: Jaffa, Nazareth, Mount Tabor, Yardenit, Galilee, Tiberius, Capernaum and Jerusalem
• Final reflections
• Further reading