"The Icon as Liturgical Analogy"

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from Hymn of Entry by Archimandrite Vasileios

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"The Divine Liturgy makes the whole world function in a trinitarian way. It puts the whole of nature into trinitarian action. Once man has participated in the Liturgy, he has an inner vision of the world. He observes one constant, made up of the chageable elements of this world seen in a trinitarian light. One expression of this inner vision is Orthodox iconography...

A religious picture is an altogether different thing from a liturgical vision. The one is the creation of someone's artistic talent, the other is the flower and reflection of liturgical life. The one is of this world. It speaks of this world and leaves you in this world. The other...speaks to you of something which has gone beyond the categories of yesterday and today, here and there, mine and thine. It addresses itself to human nature universally, to man's thirst for something beyond...

...'Time and nature are made new': worldly space is transfigured; perspective, which puts man in the position of an outside observer, no longer exists. The believer, the pilgrim, is a guest at the Wedding. He is inside, and sees the whole world from the inside. History is interpreted differently: the events of the divine Economy are not past and closed; but present and active. They embrace us, they save us. What we have in the icon is not a neutral, faithful historical representation, but a dynamic liturgical transformation. In iconography, the events of salvation are not interpreted historically but expressed mystically and embodied liturgically; they interpenetrate with one another. They become a witness to the 'different way of life' which has broken through the bounds set by corruption. They invite us to a spiritual banquet, here, now...

...The icon is a witness to liturgical life and to the unity of the Godhead. It is not the creation or improvization of some genius. It does not serve merely artistic ends. It does not divide up history. For the world of the icon, distance in space and the passing of time do not exist. What an icon expresses is not the fragmentation of the present age, but the unifying power of the Liturgy.

Within the radical transformation of the world represented by the icon--the abolition of perspective, the telescoping of history, the alterations in size and in the proportion of bodies and buildings--there reigns an atmosphere of total calm and life proceeds peacefully....We find ourselves in a state beyond any trials: in the eighth day, in the land of Paradise...

The light in an icon is not of the present age. It does not come from outside to give light in passing. An uncreated light that knows no evening, like the grace and the gift of the Holy Spirit, is shed from within the icon itself, from the faces of the saints and transfigured creation: a calm, restful and joyful light. Icons depicting events which took place in daytime are no brighter than those showing us events which took place at night. The Last Supper and the prayer in Gethsemane are no darker than the Lord with the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well, the Resurrection or Pentecost. The event depicted by the icon is not lit by the day or darkened by the night. Here all mortal flesh is silent. No element or event from the created world strikes a false note or operates in a worldly way or 'takes the initiative,' but everything serves its function in a restrained and priestly manner, undergoing the strange alteration of the Transfiguration...And while the icon does not have need of anything, at the same time, it does not despise anything. Here everything is blessed, and exults and leaps for joy. Everything is filled with uncreated light.

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The icon of the Transfiguration is no brighter than the icon of the Crucifixion. The Lord's face does not 'shine' at the Transfiguration more than in any other icon of Him. In iconography the Transfiguration is not an isolated and separate event, but a manifestation of the grace and mysterious illumination that fills everything and gives it life...So he who has spiritual sense can see the uncreated brilliance, invisible to the naked eye, that has glorified dark and bright alike....Spiritual joy cannot be perceived by the mere senses, nor is it confined simply within shades of color, just as the mystery of theology is not bound by 'certain formulations and creations of the mind.'

You cannot ask for Transfiguration or for anything else in the Church from a human point of view, by the criteria of created things. The grace of the Transfiguration has shone everywhere and strangely altered everything, pain and joy, life and death. Everything interpenetrates. It is everywhere and nowhere. It is perceived and understood in an unaccustomed way...

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The icon...does not create romantic images for you or illusions about that time and place. It does not evoke in you human memories of bygone ages, events, or civilizations. The icon is a life-giving presence. It brings before you the transparency of transfigured history and matter: it brings you to the wedding of the created and the uncreated. Into the area where everything is true and free from sorrow--even the transient and ephemeral, yet without its transient and ephemeral nature being destroyed. Instead these things, motionless in a sure and boundless movement of life, enable you to drink from the exultation which wells up from the Tomb of Christ."

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