Every real
ethnos/kin-group/nation in the world, when it has thoroughly embraced the
Orthodox Faith, offers to the Church a unique set of characteristics. Some will stand out more than others. Were the South to fully embrace Orthodoxy,
being a people who love words, it is very likely that she would offer to the
Orthodox Church many good homilies/sermons, commentaries on the Holy
Scriptures, hymn writers, stories of the lives of the Saints, and other things
akin to them.
But there is
a danger here, the danger of one-sidedness or over-emphasis. It is safe to say that the South fell prey to
it long ago. She has a very high regard
for the Holy Scriptures, and ordinarily there would be nothing wrong with
that: They are full of God’s Grace. But most Southern Christians, being
Evangelical Protestants, have reduced the Christian Faith to nothing but the
Bible (thus, no sacraments, Holy Fathers, etc.), and not even the whole Bible,
but merely those books considered authentic by an 1825 decision of the British
and Foreign Bible Society (which rejected what many know as the Apocryphal
books: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_Bible#Early_Protestant_Bibles).
If true
Orthodox Christianity is going to flourish here in the South, she will have to
repent of this. Fr Ted Bobosh offers
some help on how Dixie can regain some balance with respect to the Holy
Scriptures:
The Comnenus
mosaics (12th-century) in Hagia Sophia (Istanbul, Turkey). Photo: Wikimedia
Commons
St.
Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople, preached a sermon on the day the icon
of the Theotokos was dedicated in Hagia Sophia, 29 March 867. In the notes
introducing the English translation of the sermon, we find this comment:
“In
the eyes of Photius, painting is the most direct form of instruction, for a
picture that is in agreement with religious truth contains the eidos, or
essence, of the prototype, which is in turn apprehended by the faculty of sight
and indelibly imprinted upon the mind. A painter is guided by divine
inspiration, so that his work is not merely mimetic, but contains an actual
share of the prototype. One would look in vain for a better expression of
Byzantine art theory.”
(Cyril Mango, THE HOMILIES OF PHOTIUS PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE, pp
282-283)
For
the Byzantine Christians, the icon was even more powerful/truthful than the
written texts because the icon shares in the prototype. It is hard for us to
imagine a time when the presuppositions and perspective of the people are
different than our own. There was a time when people heard the phrase, “the word
of God”, it was not the Bible that came to mind, instead they would have
thought, Jesus Christ.
Living
in the literary culture of the 21st Century, and being shaped by the literary
tradition of recent centuries, it is hard to imagine that at one time Christians,
like Photius, thought the pictured icon to be “truer” than the written text – a
more certain witness to the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Our modern penchant
for scholarship has increased this idolization of the text, which, when
combined with cultural literalism, proves to be deadly, as St. Paul says. Just
read 2 Corinthians 3 in the light of Photius’ idea that the painted text shares
in the prototype. Christian don’t have to rely only on a printed text, we have
icons – we are icons of God, created in God’s image!
2
Corinthians 3 –
You
yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on your hearts, to be
known and read by all men; and you show that you are a letter from Christ
delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God,
not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. . . . God, who has made
us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not in a written code but in
the Spirit; for the written code kills, but the Spirit gives life.
St.
Paul says the Christian, the disciple is the true scripture because God’s Holy
Spirit has written on our hearts. In the beginning, humans were created in
God’s image and likeness – we were created in the image and likeness of the
Word of God. Now God’s spirit writes on our heart, making us visible images of
the Word.
Now
if the dispensation of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such
splendor that the Israelites could not look at Moses’ face because of its
brightness, fading as this was, will not the dispensation of the Spirit be
attended with greater splendor? . . . Since we have such a hope, we are very
bold, not like Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might
not see the end of the fading splendor. But their minds were hardened; for to
this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted,
because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day whenever Moses
is read a veil lies over their minds; but when a man turns to the Lord the veil
is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is,
there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the
Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another;
for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
When
we turn to the Lord . . . . which we can really do when we turn to look at an
icon, we see the splendor of God. Most miraculous of all is that we can look
upon Christ in an icon and we do not have to put on a veil, as Moses did to
protect the Israelites from the glory of God shining forth in his face. And, we
are changed by looking at the icon of Christ into His likeness. This is how the
icon serves a better purpose than the scriptures themselves. The incarnation of
Christ our God has changed the very nature of the world.
Source: http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/105268.htm,
opened 1 Aug. 2017
--
Holy
Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð!
Anathema
to the Union!
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