{"id":447,"date":"2018-06-19T10:43:00","date_gmt":"2018-06-19T10:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.smallpage.online\/2018\/06\/19\/consecration-of-icons-does-it-agree\/"},"modified":"2019-06-13T12:55:13","modified_gmt":"2019-06-13T12:55:13","slug":"does-it-agree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/2018\/06\/does-it-agree","title":{"rendered":"Consecration of Icons: Does It Agree with the Orthodox Tradition?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Question<\/div>\n
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Orthodox Christians routinely have their icons blessed by a priest or bishop. Bishops often anoint them with Holy Chrism. There are even special services for blessing different kinds of icons: of Christ, of the Mother of God, of feasts, etc. Most people would never imagine putting an unblessed icon in their houses; it would be a kind of sacrilege, but once the icon is blessed \u2014 whatever its subject, taste, canonicity, etc. \u2014 many think that what was a simple picture before the blessing becomes an icon after, because of the blessing. It becomes at least a \u201cbetter\u201d icon. Being only a \u201cprofane\u201d image before, it becomes \u201choly\u201d after, because it has been blessed. Very few Orthodox would question this practice which they feel is legitimate, traditional, and totally in agreement with Church Tradition. I hope to show that despite the widespread habit of blessing icons, this practice is not in agreement with Church Tradition, and that it is in fact contrary to it and based on a theology of the icons that is foreign to Orthodoxy.<\/div>\n
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The History<\/div>\n
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From Pentecost, 33, to the 7th Ecumenical Council, 787, which condemned iconoclasm:<\/div>\n
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During this period, there is a total silence in the historical documents. As far as we know, no one ever wrote on the subject of blessing images, and there is no trace of a prayer for blessing them.<\/div>\n
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The Time of Iconoclasm, 730-843:<\/div>\n
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The Second Council of Nicaea, 787. Here is one of the attacks made by the iconoclasts against the iconodoules, read during the council along with the answer given by the Fathers.<\/div>\n
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The Iconoclasts: \u2026nor is there any prayer of consecration for it [an icon] to transpose it from the state of being common to the state of being sacred. Instead, it remains common and worthless, as the painter made it.\u00a0The Orthodox: \u2026many of the sacred things which we have at our disposal do not need a prayer of sanctification, since their name itself says that they are all-sacred and full of grace. Consequently, we honor and embrace them as venerable things. Thus, even without a prayer of sanctification, we revere the form of the life-giving cross. The very form of it is sufficient for us to receive sanctification. By the veneration which we offer to it, by the making of its sign on our forehead, and also by the making of its sign in the air with the finger, like a seal, we express the hope that it dispels demons. In the same way, when we signify an icon with a name, we transfer the honor to the prototype; by embracing it and offering to it the veneration of honor, we share in the sanctification. Also we kiss and embrace the different holy utensils which we have, and we express the hope of receiving a blessing from them. Therefore, either they [the iconoclasts] must say idly that the cross and the holy utensils are common and worthless \u2014 since it is a carpenter, or a painter, or a weaver who has made them, and because there is no prayer of consecration for them \u2014 or they will have to accept also the venerable icons as sacred, holy, and worthy of honor.<\/div>\n
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For, just as when one paints a man, one does not render him without a soul, but he remains one who has a soul and the icons is called his because of his resemblance, so it is when we make an icon of the Lord. We confess the Lord\u2019s flesh to be deified, and we know the icons to be nothing else but icons, signifying the imitation of the prototype. It is from this that the icon has taken also the name of the prototype, which is the only thing that it has in common with the prototype. That is why it is venerable and holy.<\/div>\n
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The Life of Steven the Younger:<\/div>\n
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Chapter\u00a0 5: \u201cRecall from Exile. Conversation with Constantine V\u201d<\/div>\n
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The saint [Steven] answered him [Constantine V]: \u201cOh Emperor, it is not the matter that is in icons that Christians have ever been ordered to worship, but they prostrate themselves in front of the name of the person who is seen on the icon\u2026\u201d<\/div>\n
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Then the saint replied: \u201cAnd who then in his right mind worships what is created when he prostrates himself in front of objects that are in the churches, whether they be of wood, stone, gold, or silver, and that have been changed into holy objects by the name written on them?\u201d<\/div>\n
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Nicephorus of Constantinople, Discourses against the Iconoclasts:<\/div>\n
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\u201cIn truth, just as churches receive the name of their holy patron saints, so also images of those saints have their names written on them, for it is what is written on them [the name] that makes them holy.\u201d<\/div>\n
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In this treatise, the Patriarch attacks the affirmations and arguments of the Emperor Constantine V who convoked the Council of Hieria in 754 to give approval to his iconoclastic doctrine. The emperor maintained that an image of someone, in order to be properly called image must be consubstantial with the prototype. So then the only image of Christ which is consubstantial with him, of the same substance as him, is the Eucharist, the holy gifts of communion. All other \u201cimages\u201d of Christ and the saints are falsely called images because their substance \u2014 wood, stone, colors, etc. \u2014 are different from that of the persons represented. What is more, for the bread and wine to become the consubstantial image of Christ, there must be a prayer of consecration in the liturgy to change them. The \u201cimages\u201d of Christ and the saints are falsely called images for two reasons: [their substances are different, and] there is no prayer of blessing to transform them into the substance of Christ and the saints.<\/div>\n
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In answering the emperor, Patriarch Nicephorus attacked his position saying that the emperor was trapped in a double error. First, to the argument that the image and its prototype must be consubstantial, Nicephorus answers that the link between the image \u2014 the type \u2014 and the person represented \u2014 the prototype \u2014 is not one of consubstantiality, but likeness and the sharing of the person\u2019s name. The image of Christ, he continues, being made of wood and colors, is called Christ because it resembles him in that it reproduces the physical characteristics of his humanity and because it carries his name. Further, Constantine was again in error because he did not distinguish two types of sanctification: the sacralization which is produced by the prayers of the Church \u2014 the blessing of water at Theophany, for example \u2014 and the sanctification that comes about by imitating Christ, by participation in his acts, words, and death \u2014 the martyr and others, for example. In the first case, a prayer of blessing is necessary; in the second, no.<\/div>\n
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English even has two words, actually the same word but pronounced differently, to distinguish these two kinds of holiness: blessed, two syllables, and blessed (blest), one syllable. \u201cTheir wedding was a blessed event which was blessed by the bishop and five healthy children.\u201d The icon does not belong in the second category but in the first. Therefore, it is holy, not because of a blessing prayer, that the Patriarch and the Orthodox in general knew did not exist, but because of its likeness to the prototype and the fact of having his or her name written on it.<\/div>\n
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From the 9th century to the middle of the 17th century:<\/div>\n
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During these centuries, there reigns another silence in the prayer books and the writings of Orthodox authors on the subject of the blessing of icons.<\/div>\n
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1649, Metropolitan Peter Moghila of Kiev:<\/div>\n
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This is the publication date for the metropolitan\u2019s Trebnik \u2014 Euchologion \u2014 in which, for the first time in an Orthodox source, we have short prayer services for the blessing of icons. See below, the texts and analysis of these prayers.<\/div>\n
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1669-1706, Patriarch Dositheos of Jerusalem.:<\/div>\n
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L.H. Grondijs quotes a passage of Dositheos: “Only in the 17th century did anyone start to ask questions about the subject [of blessing icons], and Dositheos of Jerusalem discussed it in a long, accusatory text against the schismatics, that is, the Roman Catholics. In the 4th chapter of his History of the Patriarchs of Jerusalem, Dositheos attributes to his adversaries (to Catholics), who favored venerating icons, the argument that the pope recites such prayers over them. Here is what Dositheos had to say: \u201cWe answer this third argument by saying that blessing icons is neither necessary or indispensable. We refer readers to the 6th session of the present council (the 7th Ecumenical Council of Nicaea) where it dealt with the council held under Copronym [Constantine V, the Council of Hieria in 754] which criticized icons in this way: [Nicaea II quoting the iconoclasts] \u2018The icon does not have a blessing to be sanctified and transferred from the common to the sacred; it remains common and profane as the painter created it.’ What is more, the council answered by the voice of Deacon Epiphanius but did not say that there was a blessing for icons, but that the image of the cross was not blessed and that it was made without a blessing.<\/div>\n
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1730, The First Blessing Prayer for an Icon in a Greek Euchologion:<\/div>\n
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When a Bishop blesses the Ikon, he anoints the four sides of it with Holy Chrism, and then says the following prayer:<\/div>\n
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Bishop: Let us pray to the Lord.<\/div>\n
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Response: Lord, have mercy.<\/div>\n
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Bishop: Master, our Almighty King, Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, You gave orders to your servant Moses to sketch a picture of a Cherub in the holy Tent, and from this, we took the custom of sketching icons as a remembrance of those whom they represent. Therefore, we pray to You, O Lord our King, to send the grace of your Holy Spirit, together with your angel, on this holy icon so that every prayer which is offered to You through this icon may be accepted by the grace, mercy, and compassion of your only-begotten Son, our Lord, God and Savior, Jesus Christ, the Lover of Mankind.<\/div>\n
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For all glory, honor, and worship are yours due, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, now and always and for ever and ever. Amen.<\/div>\n
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Thefollowing passage is a note included in the Euchologion by its publisher.<\/div>\n
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About the prayer that the bishop says over the newly painted icon, please note that the Sacramentaria Latina contains a similar blessing without anointing with chrism, especially what is used in the Ordo Praedicatorum, as well as the Pontificale Romanum. Even though in the past, due to too much negligence, a blessing of this manner was rejected by usage, but now this fundamental books that [that we have] in hand conserves and maintains them.<\/div>\n
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Analysis of the Blessing Prayers<\/div>\n
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The Slavonic Texts<\/div>\n
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Let us examine first of all the prayers introduced by Metropolitan Peter Moghila into his Euchologion\/Trebnik in 1646. There are five short services for blessing icons:<\/div>\n
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