(This sermon was offered by Fr. Deacon John Schantz at the Sunday of Orthodoxy Vespers, served at St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church on Sunday March 9th 2025)
Fathers, brothers and sisters, Glory to Jesus Christ, Glory Forever!
This evening, we remember the conclusion of a battle which was waged in the church for over 100 years over icons. There is ancient testament to the presence of icons very early in the history of the church, but around the year 700, opposition started to mount to the use of icons in the church. Iconoclastic emperors arose who forbade the production and use of icons.
Our feast today commemorates the return of icons into the Great Church, in Constantinople in the year 843 – this time, iconoclasm came to end, at least in the church. Sadly, many icons were destroyed, and many people were persecuted, some even to death, for the making and using icons.
Since that time, the use of icons has been settled in the church. However, you may have noticed an increase of iconoclastic ideas from online characters who are again trotting out many of the same arguments which were brought against icon veneration in the past. Some decry the making of the icons, some the veneration of icons. None of the arguments are new and they have all been answered in the past by beloved saints such as John of Damascus and Theodore the Studite as well as the Fathers of the 7th Ecumenical Council.
One of the most dangerous ideas is that icons are quaint items that might have been useful as teaching tools in the past, but they are no longer needed because we have better ways of educating our flocks. Tied to this is the idea that they should not be venerated. This perspective misses that the icon is not simply a tool. The icon is a way that we show love, it is a way that we remain in communion with Christ and his saints.
A read through the John of Damascus’ defence of icons is recommended for anyone interested in the topic. But for the purpose of this talk, I wanted to point out that his writings are not simply a defense of icons, as a kind of appendix to the Christian faith. No, for John, the icon is not an optional extra; it is the proof of Christ’s saving work in humanity. And if we don’t have the icon, we don’t have the Gospel.
You see, Christianity has a problem. We speak of God as unknowable, inconceivable, indescribable, uncontainable. And if all these things are true, which they are, how do have a chance of “knowing” God in any meaningful way? The answer to this problem is the entire economy of salvation. Thankfully, as the Psalms attest, and as we sing in our services,“God is the Lord and has revealed Himself to us.”
John of Damascus asserts that the way God reveals Himself to us, is through imagery. We can’t see him or understand Him or define Him, but we can come to know something of God through imagery. In the language of John “Every image makes manifest and demonstrates something hidden…[images]…guide us to knowledge and make known what is hidden, for our profit and salvation.”
He gives examples of different kinds of images, including the Trinity imaged in the sun, its light and its rays, the mother of God imaged in the burning bush and Aaron’s budding rod, and the serpent on a pole imaging Christ’s overcoming of the primordial serpent. He also talks about images which God commanded Moses to make in the tabernacle: the cherubim, the bronze pomegranates, the images on the veils. Indeed, even the Tabernacle itself was an image of the Cosmos.
But even more importantly are the images of humanity, and that of Christ Himself. Humanity is made in the image of God, as we learn in Genesis chapter 1. We know that image was marred in the fall. Marred but not lost. However, Christ (the Logos of God) is not, in the image of God, He is the image of God. In Christ, the problem of God’s unknowability, His inconceivability, indescribability, uncontainability, are all answered. The God who cannot be seen and who cannot properly be named in the Old Testament, takes on a body, name and a face. Thus we can see him, we can call His name, we can paint his image!
At first glance, this seem to be at odds with the commandments. The commandment not to make images was because God could not be imaged. But in Christ, He is revealed to us. (Whoever has seen me has seen the Father). All this leads John to say:
I venerate the Creator… who came down to his creation without being lowered or weakened, that he might glorify my nature and bring about communion with the divine nature. I venerate together with the King and God…his body, not as a garment, nor as a fourth person (God forbid!), but as called to be and to have become unchangeably equal to God…For the nature of flesh did not become divinity, but as the Word became flesh immutably, remaining what it was, so also the flesh became the Word without losing what it was, being rather made equal to the Word hypostatically. Therefore I am emboldened to depict the invisible God, not as invisible, but as he became visible for our sake, by participation in flesh and blood.
John points out that he could have come as an angel, but he makes himself lower than the angels, and comes of the “seed of Abraham”. In so doing, He restores the marred image of God and raises our humanity to be in communion with the divine nature.
This is why, John points out, that we do not see images of humanity in the Old Testament, nor do we see Synagogues named after humans. Humanity was in a fallen state, prior to Christ, but in Christ, humanity has the chance to partake in the image of God. So the images are not simply images of people, but they also becomes images of God (yet another revelation of God) in some way.
This is why we make images. The icon is not, nor has it ever been primarily about information. It is about communion. It is about entering into relationship with Christ and, by extension, with all of the saints. Of course, we should also remember that John distinguishes worship from veneration and points out numerous examples in the Old Testament of veneration being offered to someone other than God. Jacob blesses Pharaoh and falls down before his brother Esau, and Daniel falls down before the angel of God, as but a few examples. So, veneration is proper and it is not possible to distinguish worship from veneration simply by observation, he points out that the purpose behind the act is what differentiates them.
Do we worship the wood and paint? No! he points out that we burn the wood when it is worn out. Instead he says, “We therefore venerate the images not by offering veneration to matter, but through them to those who are depicted in them.” “For the honour offered to the image mounts up to the archetype.” as the divine Basil says.”
So, we see that icons are not merely a quaint teaching tool. Icons are, in some way, the focal point of the Gospel itself. And this is what we celebrate today.
One word of caution should be offered here. It is easy to be triumphalist in that we have this beautiful theology of the icon, and this is something worth celebrating to be sure. However, we saw that the theology of the icon is firmly built on the foundation of humanity being in the image of God. In our triumphalism, it is important to remember that our veneration of the icon means nothing if we do not also venerate the human person who is in the image of God.
By this I do not mean to denigrate the icon, but I also want to remind us that we are in danger of denigrating the icon by our actions if we do not also venerate the image of God
In our family members
In our brothers and sisters in Christ
In the beggar we encounter on the streets
In our co-workers
In the person whose politics are opposed to our own
Simply put, the icon “doesn’t work” if we lose sight of the image of God in those around us.
By the prayers of the fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, of St John of Damascus and St. Theodore the Studite and of all those who suffered for the making and veneration of icons, may we be able to see the image of God in all of the icons that He has provided for our benefit.