November 6, 2007
Love, Honor, and Icons
Posted in Icons, Love at 1:54 am by whatisassumed
“Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.” Matthew 25:40
“The honor that is given to an icon passes over to the prototype.” St. Basil
Succumbing to iconoclasm not only means swallowing a heterodox Christology but accepting a deficient Christian life. When we honor an icon of St. John the Theologian, for instance, the honor does not rest with ink and wood but passes to St. John himself, as St. Basil tells us (and more explicitly, the 7th Ecumenical Council). Jesus tells us that the honor paid to one of His brothers, like St. John, is also paid unto Christ in whose image St. John is made. The movement when we venerate an icon is from icon to prototype (who is an icon) to Prototype. This is not to say that this is merely an acceptable practice, but Christ’s words in Mt. 25:31-46 tell us that venerating icons is the very substance of the Christian life by which we will be judged. Icons of Christ are all around us. Some are hungry, some are naked, some are sick, and we need to feed, clothe, and nurse them. Some need to be censed and kissed. In this light the concerns that venerating saints and icons somehow take away from the honor we should pay Christ melt away. It is from this perspective we see that by venerating saints, “even the least of them,” we venerate Christ, their Prototype (“you do it unto me”). It is here we are reminded of St. John’s words that we cannot love God without loving our brothers (1 Jn. 4:8, 20-21) and that to live in love for our brothers is to live in God (1 Jn. 4:7, 16). Indeed, we can’t demand the Lord of hosts without His hosts unless we demand a different Lord; but when we embrace the Lord we embrace His hosts and when we embrace His hosts we embrace the Lord. Far from seeing saints as risks for idolatry, they are icons of God who can pass us into the very presence of their Prototype.
MCO
