Icon as Sermon, The

Father Jason is pastor of St. Jude's Liberal Catholic Church, Nashua NH

Using the example of "The Holy Trinity" by St. Andre Rublev.

St. Andre Rublev was the founder of the Russian style of iconography and began his career in the 15th century. He studied in Greece at the Holy Mountain, and was sent back to his monastery shortly before the fall of Constantinople. There he began his school when word reached him of the fall of the city. It is not surprising that he began a style of iconography that was different from the Byzantine, though showing its influence. Russian Christianity was also different from that of the Byzantines and they were subconsciously seeking how to define themselves now that they were the ‘Third Rome’.

Rublev was the one that seemed to do it. His icons were softer, more graceful than those of the earlier eras. The faces were softer, the kisses more tender, the hands offered more of a caress. These icons were a deep expression of the Russian spirituality as compared to the political and religious propaganda that it had developed into in Constantinople. Among the greatest examples of this was the definitive Russian icon, "The Holy Trinity"

This icon depicts the Holy Trinity in the form of the Angels that appeared to Abraham at the oaks of Mamre.

Here you see the three of them gathered around a table, beneath the shade of an oak tree, relaxing. Or so it would seem. On a closer look you see that two of the angels are looking at the angel robed in gold. The middle angel is robed in a purple robe, wrapped in a blue cloak, with his hand forming a sign of a benediction. The third angel is focusing his attention on them, as if waiting for instruction. The wings of each angel are touching, with the wing of the golden angel overlapping the wing of the middle one.

The angel in the middle is Jesus Christ. He is robed in the same clothes that he wears in all icons, the royal inner garment and the blue outer one. The inner garment represents His Divine Nature, and also spirituality, hence the royal coloring. Usually the purple commonly worn by the Byzantine Rulers, with a gold sash representing his authority. The outer garment is blue, representing His Human Nature, and the physical world, this is wrapped around him showing how he "regarded not equality with God as something to be grasped at, but took upon him self the form of a slave, being obedient even unto death on a cross" and enclosed his divinity in human form.

The angel on the right, is representative of God the Father. He is robed in gold to show that he is the ultimate Ideal, the source of all goodness and holiness. His wing overlaps Christ’s to show that Christ is one in essence with him, true God of True God. Christ is focused on him, to show that Christ exists to do His Father’s will, and desires nothing apart from that.

The angel on the left is the Holy Spirit. His outer garment is green, representing life. It is important to point out that it is a light green, the same color as the leaves in early spring. He is the one who brings about a renewal of spirit, and is the breath of life. His hand is not raised in a benediction, but seems to indicate he is about to get up to carry out the Will of God. His wing merely touches the wing of Christ and doesn’t overlap due to the fact that the Christian East did not confess the ‘filioque’ of the Nicene Creed and believed that the Holy Spirit only proceeded from the Father, not the Father and the Son. However, it did touch as they do all possess the same essence. Like God the Father, his inner garment is blue. This is because man was made ‘in the image and likeness of God’.

A closer examination of the ‘table’ shows it to be a square altar, and on it rests a chalice; indicating the blood of Christ, and a loaf of bread; indicating the Body of Christ. Christ is blessing it, transforming it from mere bread and wine into himself. God is blessing it showing that he accepts the offering and the sacrifice.

The casual observer might wonder why Christ is higher than God. The fact is, He isn’t. It is an optical illusion. Sort of.

One aspect of icons is their odd sense of proportion, or rather a lack of it. An icon is designed to see all things at once, like God does. However, the human eye can’t grasp that, so it comes out looking odd. Here, Rublev is trying to show what is in the chalice, so he has the back of the altar raised so you can look down on it from above. If you could see it as it was intended, all three angels would be the same height, being one in essence and undivided.

It has been said that when Picasso was studying art, he went to Eastern Europe to study icons to get a sense of that type of proportioning. Later on, when he began painting, he was so affected by the atrocities of the Spanish Civil War that he began painting his abstract art in response to it. He was trying to depict the divine vision, without God. His "Nude Descending a Staircase" is a classic example. Without God everything is blasphemous and distorted. Another group that possessed a similar attitude was the "Dada" Movement, or the Surrealists, Salvador Dali being foremost among them. They were reacting to the horrors of the First World War, and were underscoring the madness of mankind. They felt that God never existed or had abandoned them. Their nightmarish landscapes of melting clocks and burning giraffes, etc. was an example of the madness they had created. However, at the same time they realized the madness that was created was not God’s doing, but entirely man’s.

They were much like the examples of what some call the "Spanish Devotional" art, which emphasizes the agonies of Christ and the ascetic struggles of the saints; which was born of a resurgence of Christian devotion and power in Spain following the expulsion of the Moors and Jews and the beginnings of the Spanish Empire. It was the age of the dark paintings of El Greco. This was the age of the Inquisition, and Tourquemada. It was also the age of Theresa of Avila, and John of the Cross, shining lights of holiness in that dark landscape.

In the midst of his personal chaos and melting watches, Dali also painted two awe-inspiring examples of modern religious art; "The Mystical Supper" and "Christ of St. John of the Cross." In the first he shows a scene that at first glance gives the impression of Da Vinci’s "Last Supper" at least in the arrangement of characters. Christ is there and not there, physical and spiritual, all at the same time. The characters who represent the apostles are dressed in priests’ vestments; the food is bread and wine. The scene is at once the Upper Room, and a sanctuary; the Last Supper and the Mass; an historical event and immediate reality.