Abbot Nicholas, on Holy Resurrection Monastery’s Practical Ecumenism blog, continues his thoughts on Pope Benedict’s “Reform of the Reform” here and here. We discussed the first part of Abbot Nicholas’s thoughts here.
(Pictured above: The dome of St Isaac’s Cathedral, Petrograd)
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I’m continuing my reflection on Cardinal Ratzinger’s (as he then was) 2000 book, The Spirit of the Liturgy.
In The Spirit of the Liturgy Cardinal Ratzinger is not only speaking of ‘image’ in the narrow sense of an icon. He is including in this understanding all Christian sacred symbolism, all liturgical action, including space and time and also sacred music. Celebration of the eucharistic prayer ad orientem or ad populumwould be included in this discussion of the image or the symbolic. Ratzinger says that we need sacred space and sacred time, mediating symbols so that precisely through the image, through the sign, we learn to see the openness of heaven. Surely, it is to heaven, to the Father that the eucharistic prayer is addressed. This symbolism has a long history in all the Apostolic Churches. It is always the Risen Christ, even His image on the Cross to whom the community looks as the true Oriens.
Cardinal Ratzinger asks: “Is this theology of the icon, as developed in the East, true? Is it valid for us (in the West)? Or is it just a peculiarity of the Christian East?” (p. 124.)
He goes on to say that the West in the first millennium emphasized, almost exclusively, the pedagogical function of the image. This is born out in such great Western Church Fathers as St. Augustine and St. Gregory the Great. The so-called Libri Carolini, as well as the synods of Frankfurt (794) and Paris (824), came out against the poorly understood Seventh Ecumenical Council. This was partly due to faulty translations of the Greek text of the Council’s decrees into Latin. But the problem went deeper, touching on the theological function of symbols which in turn speaks to their anthropological function. In the East, the defeat of iconoclasm was the triumph of a vision of human life materially linked with the Divine through the Incarnation. Ratzinger certainly does not claim that the West rejected this vision—indeed it did not. It was not rejected, because it was not fully understood.
One suspects that the full consequences of this disconnect did not emerge for centuries, as long as it was submerged beneath the obvious similarities between the art of Christians on both sides of the Latin/Greek divide. At least until the thirteenth century the fundamental orientations of iconography remained essentially the same in East and West. But the Renaissance did something quite new. “Sacred art” now became merely “religious art.”
Now we see the development of the aesthetic in the modern sense, the vision of a beauty that no longer points beyond itself but is content in the end with itself, the beauty of the appearing thing. (p. 129).
Ratzinger sees Baroque art, in its Christian form, as an attempt to recapture the sacred. However, it is here that we see most clearly the ancient tendency of the West to regard art and symbols as pedagogical tools.
In line with the tradition of the West the Council [of Trent] again emphasized the didactic and pedagogical character of art, but as a fresh start toward interior renewal, it led once more to a new kind of seeing that comes from and returns within. (Ibid.)
In short, what was missing from the western Baroque was precisely its iconic, which is to say liturgical function. Religious art did not seek to effect union between humanity and divinity, but merely to encourage, or describe, the inner experience of a highly individualized spirituality. Baroque art was capable of an intense emotionality (Ratzinger speaks of it as an “alleluia in visual form”, p. 130), but it was not itself a sacrament making possible the participation of human emotion—indeed, any aspect of human experience—in divine reality. We have here the old problem that the West, especially after Augustine, could never quite overcome: how can material creatures participate in immaterial life? The Baroque is, in many ways, the traditional Western solution expressed in a new way: we participate in God’s life through an inward adjustment of our emotional and intellectual capacities. We feel, we think like God, but we cannot be gods. And this means the world we inhabit, however beautifully it might reflect, by analogy, divine power, cannot be drawn up with us into divinized life.
Here, I have to inject my own observation that this problem that I have called “Western” penetrated deeply into the Greek, Arabic, Slavic and Balkan churches of this same period. The adoption by Orthodox Churches of Baroque styles of visual and musical art is well known. However, it would not be true to say that the more ancient, patristic view of the image as sacrament was entirely lost. The forms changed, and to some extent this inevitably obscured the theology of image, but not entirely. Icons retained their specifically liturgical function. Instrumental music was never accepted in the East. However powerful the enticements of Counter-Reformation Catholic vitality, the Orthodox retained an instinctive sense that art was more than a way of seeing within, but rather pointed outwards, beyond itself to the divine heart of reality itself.
By the time of the Enlightenment an impoverished view of the image deprived the Church of a stronger defense against the secularization of cultural and intellectual life. This in turn was the foundation for a fully developed “iconoclasm.”
The Enlightenment pushed faith into a kind of intellectual and even social ghetto. Contemporary culture turned away from the faith and trod another path, so that faith took flight in historicism, the copying of the past, or else attempt at compromise or lost itself in resignation or cultural abstinence. The last of these led to a new iconoclasm, which has frequently been regarded as virtually mandated by the Second Vatican Council. (p. 130.)
In the end the “new iconoclasm” of which Ratzinger speaks is not simply the abandonment of images, although it may at times involve this. Sometimes the kind of iconoclasm to which he refers could even take place within an explosion of images in a quantitative sense (as may be seen in many places in the 19th century, for example, with the embrace of kitsch). What matters is not so much the number of images and other symbols, nor even their form, but rather the theological and anthropological vision that determines how they are seen and experienced, either solely as expressions of individual spirituality or as means of communion. Cardinal Ratzinger says:
The Church in the West does not need to disown the specific path she has followed since about the thirteenth century. But she must achieve a real reception of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, Nicaea II, which affirmed the fundamental importance and theological status of the image in the Church. The Western Church does not need to subject herself to all the individual norms concerning images that were developed at the councils and synods of the east, coming to some kind of conclusion in 1551 at the council of Moscow. Nevertheless, she should regard the fundamental lines of this theology of the image in the Church as normative for her. (pp. 133-4.)
In any discussion involving the broad generalizations of “West” and “East” there is often the danger of making out distinctions in expression to amount to differences in faith. In ecumenical, or anti-ecumenical, polemics this danger is often eagerly embraced. I would hate to think that my reflections, and still less Ratzinger’s thought on which they are based, should seem to fall into the category of polemic.
The basic faith of the universal Church is, and has always been, that Jesus Christ unites in Himself all things in heaven and on earth (cf Ephesians 1:10). This is a fact, the fact of the Incarnation, and it forms the irreducible content of Christian hope. There are certain consequences of this faith in terms of the way in which Christians have access to the Incarnation as a historical and trans-historical fact: notably the sacraments, of which the Church herself is the first. This basic theological truth, and the practice it enlivens, form the common patrimony of the Eastern and Western Churches. It unites at the deepest level.
What divides, or at least distinguishes East and West, then, is not so much a matter of faith or practice, but of ways of explaining this faith and practice. What really divides us, then, is theological language.
I think that this is at least what Ratzinger thinks (and I certainly agree with him). What he is seeking to do in The Spirit of the Liturgy is not to make Roman Catholics adopt oriental icons or liturgical forms. Not at all! What he is trying to do is point out something that Roman Catholics already know is missing from their theological language, including their non-verbal, their iconic, language. The fact that they can sense that it is missing is a sign that they belong to the ancient Church, not that they are excluded from it. What Ratzinger sees in the Seventh Ecumenical Council is a way of giving back to Catholics something they have always known, but have never been able to completely express within the parameters and limitations of their own theological discourse. He seeks to give them a language to help explain what they have always tried to see within the “way of seeing” that is sometimes revealed, sometimes obscured, in the symbolic arrangement of their worship and devotional lives.
In short, it is not only Eastern Christians who are convinced that, in Christ, heaven and earth are mingled together (as one of the hymn writers of the Byzantine tradition puts it). Western Catholics believe this also. They know it; it informs their attitude to the world, to nature, to care for the poor, to the construction of Christian community, to the role of natural law and in so many other different aspects of the genius of the Roman Catholic tradition. What Ratzinger wants to do is strengthen this tradition by introducing, or re-introducing to it, a way of seeing that it will recognize with joy, because it already corresponds to its deepest insights and longings.
This is ecumenical work at the highest level. I am deeply grateful for it.
Eirenikon 
Much, much better!
If Abbot Nicholas could edit his first blog post to bring it into conformity with the more careful and nuanced language of this, his second post, I would be very comfortable seeing the whole as part of a must-read list for modern Catholics, both Eastern and Western.
I really like this with one exception: there is no attention paid to the fact that late-medieval forms of Othodox/Catholic worship developed precisely *because* of their respective understandings of the council. For instance if the Libri Carolini are the normative understanding of iconography, than contemplative prayer before statuary is acceptable. However, if 2nd Nicea is normative, than it’s proscriptions for bodily worship, if applied to statuary, are indistinguishable from pagan worship which the council itself sought to distance from.
Another example is the Sistine Chapel. Under what reading of 2nd Nicea is the placing of the sybils as alternative prophets acceptable? A reading which places primacy on the Caroline Letters/Frankfurt/Paris.
Thus, as much as I would like to, I find myself unable to be as optimistic as regards 13th century Western developments. It seems to me that while Pope Benedict correctly diagnoses the problem of contemporary images, which are pervasive throughout Catholicism, indeed even within the papal basilicas, he misproscribes the remedy. The images of the 13th century are entirely ideologically committed to the Frankish vision, which finds itself as an explicit expression *against* the ecumenical council on icons. One may try to argue that Rome tried to synthesize these two visions, yet I find this argument completely uncompelling considering that nearly the entirety of the pre-Renaissance Western iconographic tradition exists only in museums. In fact, in my fairly extensive travels, I have only once seen such an icon in a church (ironically, in a Lutheran church). It is precisely this fact that makes it seem so odd when I find a Catholic Chuch containing reproductions of Byzantine icons: why not look to the antiquity of the Western tradition?
In short, I’m not trying to suggest that 13th century art is heretical, only that it is the ideological product of the libri carolini. Thus, any reception of Nicea II requires an explicit evaluation of 13th century western church art.
I don’t understand this facile Orthodox obsession with the libri carolini. No one denies their existence but, as the Wikipedia entry puts it ,”The Libri Carolini were never promulgated at the time, and remained all but unknown until they were first printed in 1549, by Jean du Tillet, Bishop of Meaux, under the name of Eriphele.” Their later popularization was thus a product of the (genuinely iconoclastic) Reformation, and not of any lasting continuous influence over the 450 years between their commissioning by Charlemagne and the actual Renaissance.
I don’t want to sound churlish by stressing this point yet again, but Orthodox critics of Catholicism often have this tendency to focus on isolated “Catholic” works (or highly selective and non-standard interpretations thereof) and crafting broad sweeping generalizations from them that totally ignore historical context or actually lived Catholicism. Hence, it follows for them that the libri carolini set the ethos for Catholic religious art, and an ultra-ultramontane interpretation of pastor aeternus becomes for them the full and last word on Catholic ecclesiology.
It just aint so!
As for Nicea 2, which canon prohibits images in the round?
You also misunderstand the role of the sybils in the chapel’s iconography. The Latin Church sets great store by the fact that Christ’s coming was prefigured EVEN in the pagan oracles. Have you forgotten, for example, the worship by the pagan magi?
If you will only recognize a very narrow and essentially Byzantine expression or conventions of Christian iconography, it is hardly surprising that you have had difficulty locating examples in the West, despite your “fairly extensive travels.”
Gosh Michael. Please stop attacking doppleganger strawmen that have nothing to do with my point. Please stop assuming I look at the world through narrow Byzantine eyes. And above all, please stop assuming that I’m not Catholic because I don’t understand.
Libri Carolini express the Frankish perception of 2 Nicea, the zeitgeist of western philosophy of iconography if you will. I never claimed it served as a significant theological work in the west. I never said anything about icons in the round.
I also did not misunderstand the use of the sybils (you really must think me quite ignorant). The point is that the purveyors of the spermatikos logos do not appear in the list of approved subjects for iconography expounded at the council. Hence, the eastern church having “received” the council permitted such icons in the narthex alone. Furthermore, the presence of such icons even in the narthex is far and few between and they are viewed as variant from the norm. It is precisely these types of subtlety that Pope Benedict laments did not permeate western liturgical art. You thus sound, literally, a bit more catholic than the pope.
Let’s return to the main point: 13th century Western church art is the ideological child of something OTHER than the council of Nicea 2. If the pope is on record saying that the catholic church never fully received Nicea 2 (and he obviously is), I’m not sure why you are so bothered by my post, especially when I explicitly stated that I’m not jumping up and down scheming heresy.
Frankly, if someone can’t post a comment arguing a minor point of this article while displaying more than cursory knowledge on the issue at hand without Catholics jumping down his throat and insisting that if he would only tow the catholic line, a catholic line the pope himself doesn’t hold, than all his misunderstandings would fade into the sunset, than I’m not sure there is any real dialogue to be had (at least here).
One last thing, how is my suggestion to review the church art of the 13th century west any different than Rome reviewing the liturgy of Addai and Mari during ecumenical discussions with Assyrians? If so, why?
I have no objection to your suggestion that the Church review 13th century religious art. We don’t even DO 13th century art anymore in any case. Just don’t expect us to remove if from the Churches that have it. Any union based on its repudiation would be a false union that I would have no interest in participating in because it would be based on what I consider to be an outright falsehood.
As for the liturgy of Addai and Mari, the Catholic side has accepted the Assyrian explanation of the orthodoxy and validity of its praxis, and does not insist on any change to it as a prerequisite for reunion. I invite you to show a similar openness of spirit with respect to our differences on iconography.
“Libri Carolini express the Frankish perception of 2 Nicea, the zeitgeist of western philosophy of iconography if you will.”
I don’t know of even a single Western theologian, historian or art scholar who makes this connection. The libri carolini represent the (largely ill-informed) views of early Carolingian bishops. They were part of an essentially semi-private exchange between the Frankish court and Rome. They explicitly deferred to the Pope’s judgment in all possible areas of contention; and the Pope firmly but politely set aside their conclusions. They had no lasting or diffuse impact on the West that anyone in the West can discern. The only people who ever bring them up are Orthodox who think they prove something, or a few rare secular historians who think they are interesting curiosities.
“The purveyors of the spermatikos” are NOT the subject of Catholic veneration anymore than are the shepherds or the animals in nativity scenes. Really, you guys need to let go.
“It is precisely these types of subtlety that Pope Benedict laments did not permeate western liturgical art.”
If the Pope really felt that way, he could always have the chapel whitewashed.
“The pope is on record saying that the catholic church never fully received Nicea 2 (and he obviously is).”
He most certainly is not, Nathaniel. Please cite the “record” that has him saying this. We went over this in our discussion of the first post from the Abbot’s blog. The author now appears to have sensibly backed away from this kind of silly/sloppy misrepresentation.
Sit down and read the canons of the council from beginning to end. They were essentially dictated by the West and even include a slew of disciplinary provisions of dubious relevance to the East. The fact that the East may have, over time, received the council differently from the West does not mean the West “never fully received Nicea 2.” The fact that Ratzinger invited us to re-internalize the council’s teachings in light of our recent historical experience is not tantamount to an absurd assertion that the Western Church had never done so.
This Pope invites us to revisit Scripture all the time. Are we, using your approach to hermeneutics, to conclude that he believes the Western Church “never really fully” grasped all that Gospel business?
The thing that I am not seeing in this conversation is that icons do not function in Roman Catholic settings the same way that they do in Orthodox settings. A devout Orthodox does not see an icon as some mere religious decoration — it is a window into the spiritual realm in which we can behold the cloud of witnesses that the Scriptures speak of. We stand in front of them when we pray, we reverence them when we pass near, and we try to peer through them to glimpse spiritual reality.
The theology of the icon has little to do with art — it has more to do with cosmology. This is a perspective I am not seeing in the Roman Catholic side of the discussion.
The reason you are not seeing it is quite simple: icons do not play an identical role in both traditions. My question to you is: why would you expect them to?
Surely it suffices that the Byzantine praxis and the theology behind it make sense to, and be seen as orthodox by, a Catholic when explained to him or her; and that the Latin view of iconography as serving a largely didactic purpose be seen and accepted by Orthodox as legitimate. Why should one praxis preclude the other, and why should the Byzantine practice be privileged by the Universal Church over and above other equally venerable ones?
Why? Because it is a vital part of Christian cosmology that is being paid lip service by over half of Christendom, which seems to want to reduce it to just a pious practice performed by an eccentric rite or two.
To see icons as largely didactic in purpose, and to compare them with other works which are didactic in purpose, seems to trivialize their much greater importance in the lives of Orthodox faithful. If we want to talk about works of art from an instructional perspective, then let us stick to those works which were created primarily for that purpose.
In what way is it “a vital part of Christian cosmology?”
If you mean vital as “living,” I won’t disagree with you. If you mean that faith without (but not precluding) icon worship is “dead” or “empty,” then we really have nothing more to talk about on the subject.
The Byzantine praxis with respect to icons IS “eccentric”. It is not reflected in the ancient Western praxis or in that of any of the other Eastern rites, all of which nevertheless make their own use of icons. It can’t even be found in its current fully developed form anywhere in any of the surviving descriptions of worship from the Apostolic era. That doesn’t mean I think the Byzantine praxis is illegitimate, or valueless, or that it holds no lessons for non-Byzantines. I just flatly deny that it is the necessary mark of Christian orthodoxy or, for that matter, the only legitimate praxis sanctioned by Nicaea II.
Just because the West treats ITS icons PRIMARILY as didactic instruments does not mean that the West systematically denies them a role in its own liturgy. Nor does it mean that the Byzantine approach to icons is not recognized by the West for what Orthodox legitimately claim it to be. It’s not an either/or issue for Catholics. There is no trivialization of Byzantine practice, or any expectation that Byzantines should treat THEIR icons as the West treats ITS own.
It is vital in the sense that a Christian life without some sort of physical acknowledgement of the immanence of the spiritual is missing something — something important. The way I see it, it is the difference between living in a “one story” versus “two story” universe, to borrow an illustration from Fr. Stephen. I mean, if you had a window into Heaven, wouldn’t you want people to look through it?
I guess the problem that I see is that there seems to be little to no liturgical appreciation for the spiritual reality of icons in the Novus Ordo or in current Roman Catholic devotional practice, as least as I have experienced it in the United States. And what the Roman Catholic Church ignores, it essentially classifies as unimportant. And if it is not important enough actually encourage people to practice it, does the RC Church really believe it in the first place? Or is it just lip service?
“I mean, if you had a window into Heaven, wouldn’t you want people to look through it?”
I’m at a loss here, why would I particularly want people to look through it? Even this would rest an a postulate that I actually believed the icon was a genuine window into Heaven rather than just a conventional representation of it. I am a Westerner, and icons hold my respect because of their didactic and symbolic value. They are “the word” of God in representational form, but are not, in and of themselves, the reality they represent. I have no expectation that viewing or even gazing into an icon can give me a foretaste of the life to come. This is a matter of cultural conditioning, not faith. Even the thought of what you claim to experience has no real appeal for me. If it works for you, that’s fine by me, but I find this notion that the faith of those for whom this supposed experience holds no special appeal is deficient is somewhat quixotic.
Beyond Diane’s excellent response, let me substitute a common Catholic devotional practice (the rosary) for icon-worship in your last paragraph, and then see how it reads:
“I guess the problem that I see is that there seems to be little to no liturgical appreciation for the spiritual reality of the rosary in the Byzantine rite or in current Orthodox devotional practice, as least as I have experienced it in the United States. And what the Orthodox Church ignores, it essentially classifies as unimportant. And if it is not important enough actually encourage people to practice it, does the Orthodox Church really believe it (i.e. structured non-liturgical popular devotion) in the first place? Or is it just lip service?”
Does this counter suggestion not strike you as bizarre?
Few if any of us are even remotely interested in becoming Byzantine, and if loss of genuine Western identity and ancient practice, and wholesale adoption of the Byzantine mindset are ALL you have to offer, then you really have NOTHING to offer most of us.
“I am a Westerner, and icons hold my respect because of their didactic and symbolic value. They are “the word” of God in representational form, but are not, in and of themselves, the reality they represent. I have no expectation that viewing or even gazing into an icon can give me a foretaste of the life to come. This is a matter of cultural conditioning, not faith. Even the thought of what you claim to experience has no real appeal for me. If it works for you, that’s fine by me, but I find this notion that the faith of those for whom this supposed experience holds no special appeal is deficient is somewhat quixotic.”
This seems to be quite a serious divide in theology, then.
“Does this counter suggestion not strike you as bizarre?”
It seems to me to be a case of apples and oranges. The Rosary is a Roman Catholic devotion to the Theotokos, born of similar Incarnational theology. (I think we can avoid an Immaculate Conception sidetrack here.) And, to the best of my knowledge, it is not featured in the Novus Ordo, whereas the veneration of icons is a part of Orthodox liturgy.
“Few if any of us are even remotely interested in becoming Byzantine, and if loss of genuine Western identity and ancient practice, and wholesale adoption of the Byzantine mindset are ALL you have to offer, then you really have NOTHING to offer most of us.”
Then what do we have to offer? Why the persistence on sacramental unity?
“Then what do we have to offer?”
That’s subjective, of course, and probably no two Catholics would give you exactly the same answer, but for me:
1. common witness,
2. access to a more or less coherent and fully developed body of scholarship that can open up “new” perspectives on eternal truths through different choices in themes and emphasis,
3. access to different historical experiences and approaches to the integration of the faith into the broader human condition, and
4. access to a corrective control test for speculative theology.
In principle, I should be able to find all of these in the Eastern Catholic rites, but the full fruits await reunion of East and West.
“Why the persistence on sacramental unity?”
Conformity to the divine will. There are other reasons, but surely this ONE should suffice.
“Then what do we have to offer?”
That’s subjective, of course, and probably no two Catholics would give you exactly the same answer, but for me:
1. common witness,
2. access to a more or less coherent and fully developed body of scholarship that can open up “new” perspectives on eternal truths through different choices in themes and emphasis,
3. access to different historical experiences and approaches to the integration of the faith into the broader human condition, and
4. access to a corrective control test for speculative theology.
In principle, I should be able to find all of these in the Eastern Catholic rites, but the full fruits await reunion of East and West.
“Why the persistence on sacramental unity?”
Conformity to the divine will. There are other reasons, but surely this ONE should suffice.
You have access to all of this through Orthodox seminaries, writings, and even the Internet. What does sacramental unity give you?
The way I understand John 17, sacramental unity is the purview of the Father, and it will happen in His time. It cannot be forced or compromised.
“The way I understand John 17, sacramental unity is the purview of the Father, and it will happen in His time. It cannot be forced or compromised.”
That’s a Protestant reading, and not the Patristic understanding of the prayer.
You were, in any case, asking why CATHOLICS cared so much about sacramental unity. Apparently submission to the traditional and Patristic understanding of the divine will doesn’t strike you as sufficiently compelling.
I guess then that we have no choice but to confess our “real” motivation. We have been caught, and the secret is out. It’s all those icons. We can’t take it anymore. They must be smashed, every last one of them! Feel better?
Thank you, Michael, for that last response…and for the admirable restraint with which you expressed it. :)
Some time ago, I mentioned Early Netherlandish painting. No one took the bait :) … so I will mention it again.
If you are familiar with Early Netherlandish style, then you know that it is extremely iconographic. In one famous Early Netherlandish Annunciation, for instance, even cabinet doors have iconographic significance (open doors mean one thing, closed doors another). People with scant knowledge of Western art history and little appreciation for the Western Tradition might find this all rather eye-opening. But first they’d have to drop their misconceptions and perhaps cultivate a less simplistic understanding of the East/West divide. :D
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Panofsky
http://www.dictionaryofarthistorians.org/panofskye.htm
http://www.jstor.org/pss/3050474
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/panof.htm
http://www.alibris.com/search/books/qwork/1858785/used/Early%20Netherlandish%20Painting
http://www.questia.com/library/art-and-architecture/erwin-panofsky.jsp
http://www.jstor.org/pss/871872
It is vital in the sense that a Christian life without some sort of physical acknowledgement of the immanence of the spiritual is missing something — something important
How on earth would you possibly know that we Westerners lack a “physical acknowledgement of the immanence of the spiritual”? Can you get inside our heads now?
The Western Tradition is replete with visual expressions of our Faith. As Michael notes, our responses to these visual expressions may not outwardly, superficially match the Byzantines’ responses to icons. But so what? Is there only one way to express or appreciate “the immanence of the spiritual” in physicality? If that’s really what you think, then all I can say is–what a spiritual straightjacket youse guys force yourselves to wear! No wonder so many Orthodox converts end up decamping. Such a narrow, rigid, restrictive “phronema” (sp?) would drive most people insane after a while.
Have you ever seen the Portinari Altarpiece in the Uffizi? The image here does not do begin to do it justice:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portinari_Altarpiece
For my money, it’s one of the most spiritual paintings ever, ever, ever. That cold northern sky draws me right in and upward to Heaven. Those brocade-clad angels — I used to call them “ice angels” when I was a young artsy undergrad camped out at the Uffizi — call me to adore the Christ Child represented at the triptych’s center.
Anyone who dismisses such a masterpiece as unspiritual must have a soul of dross. To put it bluntly. But I assume no one here would go that far…right? ;)
Another point about this tendency to privilege Byzantine icons over Western religious art: It strikes me as rather gnostic. That whole “you-can’t-understand-because-you-don’t-have-the-phronema-and-you’re-not-looking-at-it-with-Eastern-eyes shtick strikes me as rather gnostic. And, if II Nicaea promoted gnosticism, then I must be missing something.
or in current Roman Catholic devotional practice
You’re kidding, right?
Most Catholic devotional practice takes place within the “Domestic Church,” i.e., the home. And many, many Catholic homes resemble shrines. We don’t just have icon corners. We have icon living rooms, LOL. And hallways. And bedrooms. And kitchens….
Have you ever been inside a Hispanic Catholic home? :D
But I suppose all of that doesn’t count. Siiiigh….
These are genuine questions of mine — I do not intend to come off as rude. Please forgive me. I just am not familiar with images in Roman Catholic settings that serve as anything beyond decoration. All the Orthodox I know have icon corners at the very least — I have encountered very few Roman Catholics who have much in the way of sacred images in their homes, and they never seem to use them for anything except decoration.
How do you interact with your images in your Domestic Church? Is this practice supported by your public liturgy?
I am looking to understand your perspective and see that you are trying to understand ours.
You are not coming off as rude at all. You are coming off as curious, which is good.
Icons serve several purposes in Latin Christianity, but we seem to have a broader colloquial definition of what constitutes an icon.
They help us focus and channel our devotions; they remind us of the saints in a very tangible and personalized way, focussing on their victory over sin, evil and adversity, calling us to emulation; they make alive for us the scriptural narrative; their presence constantly, constantly, calls us to prayer. In most of the world (albeit not so much in most of North America) we parade them on feast days before and/or after the liturgy as testimony to our faith and as a call to “all to come in;” with respect to the liturgy itself, the Pope has most recently called for the officiant to face an icon of Christ if the altar’s position is not ad orientam.
Catholic icons sometimes cry, bleed, shake or reveal stigmata, and are commonly associated with miracles. This offers a somewhat more concrete experience of the supernatural than the vision of heaven you alluded to; but as this sometimes occurs with respect to Orthodox icons as well, Catholics don’t dwell on this aspect in a polemic sense.
This may all seem like small beer to Orthodox, but it is enough to make Catholics constantly have to defend themselves against Protestant (as well as Jewish, Moslem and secular) accusations of idolatry and crass materialism–accusations, mind you, from which Orthodox are usually spared as they are not the focus of anti-Romanism and are usually so few in the West as to fly below the radar.
In really devout Catholic households there is an icon or crucifix in virtually every room (or there was at least into my childhood), often with a prie-dieu or kneeling stool in front of at least one of them.
I am, of course, describing an idealized Catholicism, but it’s certainly what you will find as a living reality in Latin America, Africa and Asia where most Catholics live. Even in the US, when television sitcoms or dramas wish to subtly stress the Catholic identity of some of the characters, the clues are there on the set in the form of crucifixes over doorways and the Madonna hanging from walls.
I agree–JTK does not come across as rude, and I apologize for my own brusqueness toward him or her. :)
Michael’s response says it all.
Secularized or “cafeteria” Catholics may have largely eliminated icons and religious art from their homes, but devout Catholics haven’t. All of my Catholic friends have Crucifixes and such all over their houses…plus statues in the front yard.
I’m in my workplace cubicle (also a shrine, LOL) right now. This evening I’ll try to remember to take some pics of my living room. It should give you some idea. :D
Speaking of which–I love to just gaze at the religious art on my mantle-piece. I just drink it in, if that makes any sense. It inspires me to prayer, and it soothes me.
Same goes for the Images from Famous Religious Art that flash up on the screen during my Rosary DVD. They help me to focus and meditate.
That would be “mantel,” not mantle – arrrggghhhh
If your religious art inspires you to prayer, then your devotional response sounds more in line with the Orthodox understanding.
Maybe this will help us understand each other better: Our icons are specially blessed by our priest. I’m not sure what the full blessing ritual is, but I know he takes them inside the iconostasis, which is spiritually connected to the Holy of Holies before the Lord’s throne in heaven. When the icons are returned to us, we handle them with the utmost respect, since they are the presence of the Saints — just like we handle relics. If I gave you a blessed icon, I would insist on the same respect, otherwise I would take it back.
Icons are incarnational, and we treat them as such. Do you have similar practices with your own artwork?
It’s certainly not that formalized, but yes, usually you seek out a priestly blessing for anything you use in your private devotions (rosaries, household madonas, etc.). I’m not sure it’s an invariable rule with respect to public images, but it strikes me as likely.
Just a quick comment: JTK has already hinted before at differences in theology regarding icons, and I think these perhaps touch upon differences in metaphysics. Participation and theosis, etc.
I do think there are fundamental differences, but they seem to be constantly papered over for the sake of “unity”.
If you have no desire for unity, then ANY difference can be raised as an excuse for continued separation. All I see is Orthodoxy inventing new reasons and excuses each generation as the old ones become stale or discredited. We were one ten centuries ago despite the filioque, celibate clergy, iconic praxis, the papal claims, azymes, the epiklesis, baptism by aspersion, etc..
P.S. Anyone who thinks Western religious art serves a purely didactic function needs to take an art history course. Preferably with the Ghost of Erwin Panofsky. ;)
Re Catholics having to defend themselves versus the true iconoclasts, our Protestant brethren:
Years ago, I was a member of a young mothers’ Bible study at a local Catholic parish. We got to talking about how our Protestant neighbors insist that we “worship statues.” (We live in the Bible Belt.)
One young mom there had a rambunctious toddler. “If I could keep a statue in my house without it getting broken,” she sighed, “I probably would worship it.”
;-)
All the Orthodox I know (and I’m married to one) do not have an icon corner, but icons all over their place without specific devotion to each of them.
The problem arises when we take our own personaland thus important but nonetheless limited experience as a correct image of Truth.
Getting back to the OP:
It was not rejected, because it was not fully understood.
Did Cardinal Ratzinger ever say this? Somehow I doubt it.
The good Abbot’s argument still leaves something to be desired.
If the Portinari Altarpiece does not represent a pretty full understanding of Nicaea II, I’ll eat my missalette.
In short, what was missing from the western Baroque was precisely its iconic, which is to say liturgical function. Religious art did not seek to effect union between humanity and divinity, but merely to encourage, or describe, the inner experience of a highly individualized spirituality. Baroque art was capable of an intense emotionality (Ratzinger speaks of it as an “alleluia in visual form”, p. 130), but it was not itself a sacrament making possible the participation of human emotion—indeed, any aspect of human experience—in divine reality. We have here the old problem that the West, especially after Augustine, could never quite overcome: how can material creatures participate in immaterial life? The Baroque is, in many ways, the traditional Western solution expressed in a new way: we participate in God’s life through an inward adjustment of our emotional and intellectual capacities. We feel, we think like God, but we cannot be gods. And this means the world we inhabit, however beautifully it might reflect, by analogy, divine power, cannot be drawn up with us into divinized life.
I can concede the points made about art, to a point. But to make a connection between this and a supposed deficient Latin understanding of Christian spirituality seems to be a stretch. (Some Latin medieval theologians may think that the only infused virtues are the theological virtues, but this is not true of all of them. And so on.) I think that the Greek and Latin understandings of divinization/theosis deserves greater investigation for him to make this point.
<ibut it was not itself a sacrament making possible the participation of human emotion—indeed, any aspect of human experience—in divine reality.
I’m intrigued by this. Since when is art a sacrament? Am I missing something here? I’m as artsy as they come, but I would never go so far as to say that art is a sacrament. Nope, I wouldn’t say that about even the most Eastern, most spiritual, most “window-into-heaven”-y icon. A sacramental, sure. A sacrament, no.
Surely the pious yiayias and babushkas don’t think they’re kissing and venerating a sacrament??
oops–messed up the coding. Initial quote should be italicized.
Diane,
The East never limited her sacraments to seven. This limiting came later from Western influence. When myrrh streams from icons and brings healing to people this is sacramental in that matter is a conduit of God’s grace. Many Orthodox see all of life as a sacrament. Limiting the sacraments to seven is foreign to Orthodoxy. In no way am I saying Rome is wrong in this. In Orthodox theology there is no differentiating between sacrament and sacramental.
It is not a question of “limiting” but of narrowing the definition. There are many signs of God’s gifts, and creation itself is a gift which is a sign of God. That’s fine. But as for the 7 “Sacraments” — there is something peculiar about them.
The same sort of thing could be said about “sacraments” as mysteries — we can say that nothing in creation or in the supernatural order is fully comprehensible by us either in this life or in eternity. It’s all about what is being defined and how.
Thanks, T. Chan–I was groping for an answer here, and you supplied a great one, far better than anything I could have articulated.
I can certainly see how everything in life is sacramental, in a sense. But, if everything is a sacrament, then doesn’t the word “sacrament” kind of lose all meaning? (scratching head)
Right about now, I must confess, my eensy little workplace cubicle does not feel very sacramental… ;-)
I was only trying to differentiate the view between how the West and East view/categorize the Mysteries/Sacraments. A mystery cannot be described as a sacramental in the East because it is a term which is only used in the West. Thus we would simply say a sacramental is a mystery. I do not believe using the word mystery to describe what the West would call a sacramental leads to the word possibly loosing its meaning; at least in the East. We simply hold a slightly different, but certainly not better view of sacramental theology.
Fr. Joseph, I wish I didn’t have to use your post, but it seemed opportune for me to use it as the starting point for saying some things that I hope would help Orthodox-Catholic discussions, and so what follows is intended to address you personally —
Perhaps this is not a problem for Orthodox theologians and scholars, but sadly, I have seen on the Internet too many Orthodox (converts) pounce on Catholic theology because they fail to follow basic logic (and etiquette?) — one the basic rules in having a discussion is to make sure you actually know what your discussion partner is talking about first and to check definitions if necessary, in order to ensure that you are on the same page. What is being named? What things are being talked about or defined? And what is the definition offered?
A failure to realize that a name is being used equivocally leads to misunderstandings and accusations of heresy by those who are inclined to polemics. I have seen this problem arise in Internet discussion with regards to the words “sacrament,” “theology, “[original] sin,” and “grace,” just to name a few.
In response to Father Joseph’s point regarding sacramental theology:
It therefore seems to me that “Latin” sacramental theology is different from “Greek” sacramental theology not because they make different assertions about the same thing (though this may be the case with respect to the 7 sacraments, I don’t know enough to say), but because the latter deals with things than the former–there is a broader range of discourse–and the word “sacrament” is being used equivocally.
Everything is sacramental but not all things are sacraments.
The world, the cosmos, the universe is an icon of the Trinitarian Creator.
Certain “things” however, more clearly reveal, in suitable surroundings, a more iconic Presence.
Thus ritual and liturgies which use certain objects and things, from water, milk, wine, honey and even flowers as the focus for “seeing” the iconic Presence. These things pre-date the Christian Liturgy which, in a certain sense, includes in their essence, the rituals and liturgies that pre-dated it.
Altogether a very insular discussion involving only the “West” and Byzantine Orthodox religious art.
It would be a more interesting discussion if the authors involved had examined religious art from other cultures and other religions. The result might be more nuanced. The theme of the interplay between the “sacred” and the non-sacred might be broader leading to more appreciation of how art can lead people to appreciate the world as the topos of the sacred.
http://zenpaintings.com/
But to make a connection between this and a supposed deficient Latin understanding of Christian spirituality seems to be a stretch.
Amen! Preach it, brother.
Not only a stretch, but a rather silly one, too.
Any comments on the new Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow?
I’m particularly struck by the icon of the Trinity;
http://www.xxc.ru/english/foto/inside/s01/index.htm
OK, I’ll bite:
1. The icon of the Trinity strikes me as surprisingly filioquist. By this I mean really “filioquist,” not of the variety that gives Orthodox polemicists bad dreams. In three dimension we see the Father behind and above, then the Son as the Word, and above the Son, but in the foreground, and with the Father as direct background, there is the Spirit winging His way towards us as indicated by the Son. By having the Father as His background, the origin of the Spirit is made clear; but His coming forth as indicated by the Son demonstrates that the Son is logically prior, and confirms the Son’s role in the Spirit’s procession from the Father.
2. On the other hand, I have to admit to some unease in seeing a pictorial representation of the Father, particularly juxtaposed with one of the incarnated Son. Michelangelo’s creation of Adam barely passes muster on this point in that the Creator can be understood as the undifferentiated triune God, who can be represented pictorially in that all Three Persons (including the Son) participated in the act of creation.
I am not an expert on iconography, but as you asked…
(I hope my filioquist interpretation doesn’t lead to a white washing.)
It has been my impression that, in Orthodoxy, depictions of the Trinity, in particular, the Father, were not to be allowed.
According to Fr. Stephen Bigham in The Image of God the Father in Orthodox Theology and Iconography,
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-tpnBl8BaF0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Steven+Bigham,+1995+Image+of+God+the+Father+in+Orthodox+Theology+and+Iconography&hl=en&ei=WpDJTJfxB4SbnwfWqajGDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
the depiction of God the Father is an “alien” influence from the West and not according to Holy Tradition.
Yet, here, in the most recent major cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church, is a clear example of what he, Fr. Bigham, states is not Orthodox.
A very interesting conumdrum.
I may add that, ( I’m not an art critic but “I do know what I like” and I don’t “like” this ), the painting smacks of late nineteenth century “pious” and “emotional” art with its depiction of a Charlton Heston Father and a Keane-eyed Italian bambino as the infant Christ surrounded by quite Italian Baroque seraphims.
It seems to me that the thesis of both authors needs to be reviewed in light of this most recent act of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Michael,
It is somewhat “filioquist”. In our proto-cathedral there is a stained glassed piece of the Spirit emanating from the Son’s “Sacred Heart” at the apse. It does not bother me in any way though because this temple was built when this parish was in communion with Rome, which is today no longer the case. That being said, i do not think the simple Carpatho-Russian people had any polemical image driven motive in the stained glass piece even at the time it was commissioned because Slavs in general have written images of the “Father” for centuries.
Also worthy of mentioning is that Orthodoxy forbids any image of the Father. However, this is the Ancient of Days, Because Christ is the image of the Father, who cannot be depicted in image. The Ancient of Days represents the timelessness of Christ-God, who is simultaneously young and old. Scriptural citations can be found in Ezekiel 1.26-28, Daniel 7.9-13, and John 14.8-9.
Father Joseph–I meant to say that I soooo appreciate your irenicism…you’ve no idea!
I do realize that the term “sacramental” (used to describe, say, the Brown Scapular or a Miraculous Medal) is not an Eastern term. Or an Eastern concept. And I totally respect that.
I guess I still kind of agree with T Chan and evagrius, though: There are sacrament-y things (the cosmos, a forest, an icon, a newborn baby, a mountain, an intense sunset such as the one I witnessed tonight)…and then there are Sacraments. The former are certainly profound means of connecting with God, but the latter are more crystallized, sacred, and special. I am not expressing this well, but I think T Chan and evagrius have expressed it very well.
In any case, I do think we kinda-sorta need definitions, or else we flounder and speak past each other. This does not by any stretch mean that those definitions should be the West’s. I think that, if both sides define their respective terms, then we know where we stand ,and we can better appreciate each other’s perspective
Given that you are about as irenical and charitable a soul as ever posted anywhere, I personally believe you’re already way ahead of the rest of us in this area!!
Mr. Chan,
You said above “and so what follows is intended to address you personally ” Was this a typo? I hope so.
Father Joseph — my apologies, it was supposed to include a “not” but somehow that got lost in the editing.
Here are two bits that might put Western approaches to images in context a bit.
The first, an article by Fr. Ernesto Obregon, a Cuban priest of the Antiochian Church in America about Latin holy images: http://www.orthocuban.com/2009/06/on-latino-holy-images/
The second, a video of a parade from Holy Week in Seville, where iconic statuary is carried around town by penitents: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMMp2uTj0QU
Catholics often view statuary as a window to the next world, though Eastern praxis has usually seen this as more pagan-y, it can hardly be called Iconoclastic.
Sam—the fact that Easterners sometimes see statues as pagan-y bears out the Chesterton paraphrase for which I got so much grief on another related thread: To fully grasp and internalize the implications, one has to at least acknowledge the legitimacy of three-dimensional Christian images (even if one’s own tradition does not include them). To condemn such images, to dismiss them as pagan-y, to berate the Latins for embracing them, is to fail to appropriate the FULLNESS of the Incarnation in all its ramifications.
No one even remotely suggests that the East should adopt three-dimensional imagery–so please, my Orthodox brethren, don’t even go there. We know the Eastern artistic tradition is two-dimensional. We respect that as totally valid and legitimate…OK?
But there’s a huge difference between “not adopting” and “actively condemning.” Anyone who condemns Catholic statues as pagan-y has not completely grasped the implications of the Incarnation. I stand by this and always will. Chesterton was right.
And, on that feisty note, I am off to watch Nero Wolfe… ;-)
Not going to get any argument from me; I am a Roman Catholic. But I can understand the other point of view.
My point was more to show the sacramental nature of images in a Western context.
Here’s something from another religious tradition.
http://www.tnm.go.jp/en/servlet/Con?pageId=B01&processId=01&event_id=1403
I was fortunate to be able to see this statue in its home temple. It is very fascinating. It was obvious that it has great significance for the people who came to the temple to revere it. One does not have to be a Buddhist in order to recognize that it has a deep religious meaning.
Here is the famous statue of Mary and the Child in Notre Dame in Paris;
http://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://wwwdelivery.superstock.com/WI/223/1606/PreviewComp/SuperStock_1606-73053.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.superstock.com/stock-photos-images/1606-73053&h=350&w=233&sz=82&tbnid=47X6F4qRLtO84M:&tbnh=120&tbnw=80&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dstatue%2Bof%2Bmary%2Bnotre%2Bdame%2Bcathedral%2Bparis%2Bphotos&zoom=1&q=statue+of+mary+notre+dame+cathedral+paris+photos&hl=en&usg=__8yU0Y8U237afKpLqOtTVkt0Yjok=&sa=X&ei=3GnUTP2dOIaPnwfEo-XHBQ&ved=0CCAQ9QEwAw
http://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://wwwdelivery.superstock.com/WI/223/1909/PreviewComp/SuperStock_1909-1132.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.superstock.com/stock-photos-images/1909-1132&h=350&w=233&sz=116&tbnid=nltju-p7kr6EJM:&tbnh=120&tbnw=80&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dstatue%2Bof%2Bmary%2Bnotre%2Bdame%2Bcathedral%2Bparis%2Bphotos&zoom=1&q=statue+of+mary+notre+dame+cathedral+paris+photos&hl=en&usg=__KxsEvdZFEBki7IsV8IP-SdoTZjw=&sa=X&ei=3GnUTP2dOIaPnwfEo-XHBQ&ved=0CB4Q9QEwAg
Interesting to note is the “Oriental” face and placement of the body.
Oops, should always proof before I post. In comment above, second sentence should read: “To fully grasp and internalize the implications of the Incarnation, one has to at least acknowledge the legitimacy of three-dimensional Christian images (even if one’s own tradition does not include them).”
Please tell me the name of the icon on your page
Akathist to the Mother of God, Softener of Hearts.
Thank you.
Where can I find the first installment of this discourse so I can place with the Conclusion here?
Thank you.
James