![]() ![]() When we venerate an icon, we are really showing honor to God. Even in the Old Testament, we see the Prophet Nathan prostrating himself before King David (1 Kings 1:23), not out of worship, but respect for the office given him by God. In the same way, Christians have always bowed to their superiors in the faith in order to show respect. Japanese people venerate and bow to their elders and superiors, not as a form of worship, but to show respect. In Japan, we can still see remnants of their vertical society, which has not been completely Westernized. Any decent person showed great respect to his elders in both society and the faith. There was no sense of egalitarianism in the ancient east. So if we do not worship icons, then why are we bowing before them and kissing them?Ĭhristianity began in an eastern culture that was not a horizontal, but a vertical society. This issue came to a head in the eighth and ninth centuries when, probably under the influence of Islam, some Christians began to destroy icons and persecute those who venerate them. In short, no, we Orthodox Christians do not worship icons, though some people, in ignorance, accuse us of idolatry. God has chosen matter to be his means of bringing grace and salvation into the world. The culmination of it can be seen in the Eucharist (communion) when those who received the grace of God unworthily had Satan enter them (as with Judas in Luke 22:3) or became sick and died (1 Cor. Our Lord’s disciples bestowed the grace of God upon others through matter when they laid their hands on others for healing or ordination, when they prayed over handkerchiefs and sent them to the sick, when their mere shadow “touched” people and healed them. Hints of this theology can be seen in the Gospels when Jesus’ clothes become light-bearing at the Transfiguration, when the woman with the issue of blood touches the fringe of his garment, etc. He saves us and bestows upon us his sanctifying grace through means of matter. In his physical body, our God lived, died, and resurrected for us. Therefore, the Orthodox have always understood iconoclasm to be a heresy that denies the Incarnation of God and thereby denies humanity its salvation in Christ. Icons are a testament of the fact that our God, who is by nature bodiless and incorporeal, took an actual human body and united it to himself, forever uniting the divine nature to human nature, to matter, sanctifying it and redeeming it in himself. According to tradition, the Apostle Luke painted the first icons. Because such technology did not exist, the ancients painted his image. If photographic technology existed at the time of Jesus, we would doubtless have thousands of photos of Jesus. The short answer to this question is because of the Incarnation. Why do Orthodox Christians venerate icons? Father Jeremy at Orthodox Road explains: Christian worship is a completely sensory, physical, visual experience as well. About 20,000 pilgrims are expected at the Lavra.Ĭhristianity is not a purely literary or spiritual faith, although many Protestants seem to treat it that way. The services for the feast are being led by His Holiness Patriarch Kirill. The icon was delivered on the night of July 16-17, and was placed in front of its original location on the iconostasis in Holy Trinity Cathedral, where lie the relics of St. This is the first time the icon has returned to the monastery since its removal. Sergius being celebrated today, the museum agreed to temporarily deliver the icon to the monastery, reports RIA-Novosti. After 9 years in a museum in Zagorsk (Sergiev Posad), it was transferred to the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, where it has remained ever since.īut in honor of the 600th anniversary of the uncovering of the relics of St. The icon was removed from the cathedral iconostasis by Soviet authorities in 1920. UNESCO describes the lavra as a major spiritual center of Russian Orthodoxy some would argue that the lavra is the spiritual center of Russian Orthodoxy. Sergius Lavra is an UNESCO World Heritage Site. Rublev’s Troitsa icon can usually be seen at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, but earlier this month it briefly returned to its traditional home at the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, located in the holy St. That doesn’t seem feasible in the near-future, given my country’s current relationship with Russia, but I pray that this relationship will change in my lifetime. It is one of my great desires to make a pilgrimage to Russia someday and venerate this icon in person. Andrei Rublev (based on the story of Abraham’s hospitality toward the three men-the Trinity-who visited him in the desert), is probably the most meaningful icon in my own spiritual life. The 600-year-old Troitsa icon, aka the Trinity icon by St. ![]()
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