Like many of the adults in the parish I serve I did not grow up Orthodox. I came to the faith well into adulthood. There were many things in the Church that at first I was very unsure about. Veneration of icons was certainly one of those things. From a non-Orthodox background at first the bowing, kissing, blessing of these images seemed far too much like what I understood as idolatry. I understood church art. We had paintings of Jesus in our churches and homes growing up. But icons seemed altogether different.
Turns out they are something altogether different. While they certainly are not idols they are also not just church art. When I was newly Orthodox I wanted defined answers for why icons were not idolatry and why they were important. The Church does offer this. The definition given at the restoration of the icons in the 9th century is very clear. There is worship – adoration – only due to God. Then there is veneration – love, honor – which we give to others. Because Christ was truly man he can be depicted, and because the saints were real people they can be depicted. Thus we can show love and honor – veneration – but not adoration to the Holy icons.
St. Basil says the honor shown passes on to the person depicted. I have a picture of my dad in my house. When I see it my heart is moved in memory of him. It’s not paper and ink that I am giving that honor and love to. I’m loving and honoring the one depicted, my dad.
Beyond the definition, though, which calmed my fears about engaging in idolatry, the practice of venerating icons, of it really sinking into my life, wouldn’t come for years really. Now I can’t imagine not having and venerating icons. I often tell seekers or catechumens that understanding the Church’s love for Mary was something, in my journey, that began with cautious assent to what the Church taught about her. But it wasn’t until years later that my heart began to know what it meant to love her and ask for intercession. I tell people that it took being around her to begin to understand. I think icons are that way too.
There is something so powerful about having the faces of saints around us. It is not just a story we read. Having the Feasts of the Church not just read from the Bible but depicted invites us to not only know in our minds what we believe or what the story is but to experience it with our bodies, our senses.
The veneration of icons is really about teaching us how to be oriented. Consider the Gospel where Nathaniel is called to follow Christ. Philip goes to his friend Nathaniel who he knows is serious in his belief in God and tells him about Jesus. Nathaniel wants to know in his head that this is okay. Nazareth? That’s not where the Messiah is supposed to come. Nathaniel was skeptical. But what does Phillip say? Come and see. Face to face.
Our Lord is not the leader of a religion, not an emblem that stands for something, not a series of doctrines or something that needs defending. He is a person who is encountered, face to face.
So we depict him. We depict him. We know that the image itself does not save us. We do not worship the image. But the one depicted has and does save us. We show love to our Lord by facing him.
Icons also call us to see the world differently and to see others differently. Icons train us to see the holiness in our neighbor. St. John of Damascus, the great defender of icons goes even further. He says:
I honor all matter, and venerate it. Through it, filled, as it were, with a divine power and grace, my salvation has come to me. Was the three-times happy and blessed wood of the Cross not matter? Was the sacred and holy mountain of Calvary not matter? What of the life-giving rock, the Holy Tomb, the source of our resurrection — was it not matter? Is the holy book of the Gospels not matter? Is the blessed table which gives us the Bread of Life not matter? Are the gold and silver, out of which crosses and altar-plate and chalices are made not matter? And before all these things, is not the body and blood of our Lord matter? Either stop venerating all these things, or submit to the tradition of the Church in the venerating of images, honoring God and his friends, and following in this the grace of the Holy Spirit. Do not despise matter, for it is not despicable. Nothing that God has made is. Only that which does not come from God is despicable — our own invention, the spontaneous decision to disregard the law of human nature, i.e., sin (On Holy Images).
Veneration of icons should train our hearts to never dehumanize any person. It should train us to resist the rhetoric and hatred that turns human persons into “them” and the kind of hard heartedness that justifies horrible acts against whole groups of people. Not having an iconic way of seeing the world leads to not seeing human persons, whether it is the unborn or immigrant at the border or the suffering people on the other side of the world, the homeless, the addict, our neighbor with the rainbow flag on his porch or the guy with the MAGA flags on his truck. When anyone is depersonalized or othered in our mind we can’t see Christ in them. This happens not because he’s not there, but because our hearts are hardened.
We need to be face to face, as the veneration of icons teaches us. We learn this with the holy saints around us in icons in the Church. In many ways the Church gives us an easy start. There is so much to love and honor about the saints. But now take that out into the world where it’s not as easy to love others, that’s where it really matters. That’s where true sacramental life, true life of repentance happens.
Saved Together 