The role of the icon in Byzantine piety

Authors

• Lennart Rydén

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30674/scripta.67117

Keywords:

Symbolism, Iconography, Christian icons, Byzantine, Byzantine Empire -- Church history, Piety

Abstract

There is a history of doctrinal controversies settled by the six ecumenical councils, from Nicaea (325) to Constantinople (680). It appears that he who makes a picture of a man and calls the man in the picture "Christ" is guilty of heresy. For either he thinks that he can circumscribe Christ's divine nature together with His human and so confuses Christ's two natures, which is monophysitism, or he says that he only wants to make a picture of Christ's flesh. But, in so doing, he gives the flesh of Christ a separate existence and adds a fourth person to the Trinity, and this is Nestorianism. The pictures of Christ that the painters produce are false pictures. What, then, constitutes a true image of Christ? This question was answered by Christ Himself on the eve of His passion, when He took bread, blessed it and said, "This is my body," and distributed wine and said, "This is my blood." The bread and wine that pass from the realm of the common to that of the holy through the blessing of the priest constitute the only true image of the body of Christ. This image does not have the form of man and therefore does not provoke idolatrous practices. It is further pointed out that there is no prayer that could transform the icons from mere matter into something holy. The pictures of the Virgin, the saints and the prophets do not offer the doctrinal dilemma which makes the picture of Christ unacceptable. Yet they must be rejected. The craft of idol-making, which makes what is not present seem to be present, was invented by the pagans, as they had no hope of resurrection.