The Ecumenical Work of the Icon

Bringing the Iconographic Tradition to Catholic Seminaries

Hilda Kleiman

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781498240338
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religious Education

The Ecumenical Work of the Icon is an invitation to the students and faculties of Catholic seminaries to be a part of the tradition of the icon through the lens of ecumenis. With a view of ecumenism as lived in both the Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions, the visual theological language of the icon may be engaged more fully and respectfully, thus enriching the theological education and future ministry of those who learn and teach in a Catholic setting. In the third portion of the book, readers are offered multiple practical pedagogical examples of how to integrate teaching and learning about the icon into seminary courses and beyond, including writing assignments, oral presentations, and hands-on activities.

1

Joining the Conversation

The Ecumenical Movement

The end of each discovery becomes the starting point for the discovery of something higher, and the ascent continues. Thus our ascent is unending. We go from beginning to beginning by way of beginnings without end.

—St. Gregory of Nyssa

Since most members of the intended audience for this project are Catholic Christians, some key documents pertaining to Catholic participation in ecumenism are the entry point for joining the conversation that is the ecumenical movement. These include “Lumen Gentium” and “Unitatis Redintegratio” from among the documents of the Second Vatican Council, the Directory for the Application of Principles and Norms of Ecumenism, and John Paul II’s Ut Unum Sint. Each of these documents is significant for formal and informal students of iconography and thus contributes to their education.

Documents of the Second Vatican Council

Among the sixteen documents of the Second Vatican Council, the constitution “Lumen Gentium: The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church” provides the basic Catholic understanding of the nature of the church that supports the pastoral applications found in the shorter decrees and declarations, including “Unitatis Redintegratio: Decree on Ecumenism.” While this discussion focuses on the first chapter of “Lumen Gentium,” this constitution also contains sections on the structure of the church, the clergy, laity, and religious, and the eschatological nature of the church.

Toward the end of the first chapter of “Lumen Gentium,” the council fathers state that the church “constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church . . . although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure.”1 Given this understanding, the spirituality of Christian traditions outside of the Catholic Church may offer fertile ground for Catholics seeking to grow in their faith. This may be particularly true for Catholics who are approaching iconography as an aspect of their prayer or who are discerning a vocation as an iconographer. The icon is an element of sanctification, and Catholics who approach the icon through study and in worship have an opportunity to experience aspects of the Christian tradition they may not currently experience on a regular basis. Icons are certainly found in Catholic parishes and homes, but they often do not have the centrality they have in an Orthodox parish or household. An experience of the fullness of truth found in the Catholic Church is found in the sanctity we experience in the practice of iconography in the Orthodox Church around the world.

The opening chapter of “Lumen Gentium” also calls upon many images from the Scriptures through which Christians may ponder the nature of the church, including the church as a sheepfold, as cultivated land, as the building of God, and as the bride of the Lamb. Two further images from Avery Dulles may also assist us as we join the conversation of the ecumenical movement, particularly with the Orthodox. Avery Dulles’s book Models of the Church, a classic text in ecclesiology, provides five primary models or images for the church. Dulles discusses the church as institution, the church as mystical communion, the church as sacrament, the church as herald, and the church as servant. In the expanded edition of Models of the Church, published in 2002, Dulles includes an additional model, the church as a community of disciples, much of which is based on the writing of John Paul II. While each model has its strengths and weaknesses, for the purposes of conversation with the Orthodox tradition, the models of the church as mystical communion and the church as sacrament may be the most helpful.

The model of the church as mystical communion may also be described as the church as the body of Christ. While this model does not deny the place of the church as an institution with visible structures, it insists that the relationships within the institution “rest upon a deeper spiritual communion of grace or charity.”2 The mystical communion may be considered the soul that animates the body or the institution of the church. The mystical communion, in turn, is animated by the Holy Spirit and includes both the visible and invisible members of the body of Christ, those currently living on earth, as well as all of the just who have gone before them. As indicated in “Lumen Gentium,” elements of the mystical communion may be found outside of the Roman Catholic Church; the body of Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, may reach beyond its visible structures and traditions.

Dulles points out several advantages of the church as mystical communion, all of which are helpful to Catholics approaching the Orthodox tradition through the study of iconography. This model has solid grounding in the Catholic tradition, including the writings of Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas and the documents of the Second Vatican Council, and it can give a renewed energy to living out Christian spirituality today through its emphasis on the communion of saints. The model of the church as a mystical communion also meets “a human need that is acutely experienced by many of the faithful.”3 Large institutions may feel distant and impersonal, leading people to look for places or structures of a more modest, more human, scale. With less focus on an institutional model and the hierarchy that is usually associated with it, the model of the church as mystical communion is “ecumenically very fruitful” since the model of the mystical body of Christ is more “congenial to most Protestants and Orthodox than the institutional model.”4 Overall, this model acknowledges and builds on the real and substantial communion that already exists among Christians from every part of the Christian world.

Dulles also explains that if the model of mystical communion is emphasized too much, it can seem too insubstantial or ethereal with too great a focus on the internal to the detriment of external structures. The pitfall of too much emphasis can affect other models as well, including the institutional model with its focus on the outward and visible organization of the church. Too much emphasis on the church as institution leads to the neglect of interpersonal relationships. Fortunately, the model of the church as sacrament may ease the tension between these two models of the church as institution and the church as mystical communion. Drawing on the work of Henri de Lubac, Dulles explains that the church as sacrament keeps the divine and human aspects of the church in relationship with one another: “An excessively spiritual and individualistic view of the life of grace . . . leads to a merely secular and sociological understanding of the Church as institution. The notion of sacrament, on the other hand, harmoniously combines both aspects.”5 This harmony can be particularly advantageous for those who are approaching the Orthodox tradition with its rich history of iconography, hymnography, and more physical gestures in prayer and worship.

The model of the church as a sacrament rests on the understanding of a sacrament as an “efficacious sign” that “itself produces or intensifies that of which it is a sign.”6 Christ is the sacrament of God, and the church is the sacrament of Christ that brings the reality of the Incarnation to the world. As it does so, it honors the need for an external structure that provides a means for visible unity and a tangible experience while also pointing toward the spiritual hope and faith of the members of the church. Thus, “the more widely and intensely the faithful participate in this corporate action of the Church, the more the Church achieves itself.”7 While the grace of God is certainly present everywhere, wherever it is p...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Joining the Conversation
• Chapter 2: Contributing to the Conversation
• Chapter 3: Inviting Others into the Conversation
• Bibliography