Rev. Fr. Frank Paul Mayernick, October 1, 2006

Dear Bothers and Sisters in Christ,                      October 2006

Have you ever wondered why we as Greek Orthodox Christians pay homage to Icons? The answer to the question comes from our understanding of history. We turn to the seventh Ecumenical Council which addressed the Iconoclast Controversy, (It centered on the use of icons in the Church and the controversy between the iconoclasts and iconophiles. The Iconoclasts were suspicious of religious art; they demanded that the Church rid itself of such art and that it be destroyed or broken. The iconophilles believed that icons served to preserve the doctrinal teachings of the Church; they considered icons to be man’s dynamic way of expressing the divine through art and beauty. The Iconoclast controversy was a form of Monophysitism: distrust and downgrading of the human side.
The Bishops came together and solved the controversy by declaring the following: “We define that the holy icons, whether in color, mosaic, or some other material, should be exhibited in the Holy Churches of God, on the sacred vessels and liturgical vestments, on the walls, furnishings, and in houses and along the roads, namely the icons of our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ, that of our Lady the Theotokos, those of the venerable angels and those of all saintly people. Whenever, these representations are contemplated, they will cause those who look at them to commemorate and love their prototype. We define also that they should be kissed and that they are an object of veneration and honor (timitiki proskynisis), but not of real worship (latreia), which is reserved for Him Who is the subject of our faith and is proper for the divine nature, ... which is in effect transmitted to the prototype; he who venerates the icon, venerated in it the reality for which it stands.”
The Orthodox Church, then, created a new art, new in form and content, which uses images and forms drawn from the material world to transmit the revelation of the divine world, making the divine accessible to human understanding and contemplation. This art developed side by side with the Divine Services and, like the Services, expresses the teaching of the Church in conformity with the word of Holy Scripture. Following the teachings of the 7th Ecumenical Council, the Icon is seen not as simple art, but that there is a complete correspondence of the Icon to Holy Scripture, for if the [Icon] is shown by [Holy Scripture], [Holy Scripture] is made incontestably clear by the [Icon] [7th Ecumenical Council, 6].
The Holy Gospel summons us to live in Christ, but it is the Icon that shows us this life. Come before the Icons of our chapel and join us in worship. The Icons visibly express the idea of Heaven on earth.

Very Rev. Frank P. Mayernick