When the Homily is about Immunology

Images, images, images, and more about images
Scathing article on Orthodoxy (Part 3)

Ahhh…the drink of choice: plain old Folgers coffee, brewed strong and powerfully laced with sugar and non-dairy creamer (my favorite!).

Well, did you look in the mirror? Did you see the Image and Likeness of God? Do you feel like you had pre-marital sex? Come on now, though the approach of likening iconography to eating the forbidden fruit or having pre-marital sex…is unique…ummm…I’m just not following it. God made the first Icon, the first Image of Himself, as such that seems to render those latter iconoclastic points moot, no?

Back in mid December of 2001, a gentleman by the name of Alfred appeared on the Evangelical-Orthodox Yahoo Group (those of you who were there will certainly remember him!) He lambasted us Orthodox unmercilessly for our idolatry, quoting scriptures to no end – sometimes even simply answering points with scripture verses without commentary or exposition. But regardless, many of the issues surrounding iconography can be read at length in the month that followed Alfred’s appearance and this gentleman received a good deal of partience and outstanding answers despite his sometimes offensive fervor. Calling Orthodoxy semi-Christianity, as our author in question did, pales in comparison to what Alfred had to say. I offer this as a resource…you will have to join the group to view the emails, but you can set the account up for web viewing only so that your email is not flooded.

Was the early church “suspicious” of images? Well certainly, based on all those quotes from Bercot’s Dictionary it would seem to lead one to think so, but we have to take great care here. If they were so suspicious of images, why does all the archeological evidence demonstrate that their places of worship were literally covered from floor to ceiling with them? Same thing can be said of the Jews of the same time period – tons of images. The highly touted example of course is the house church and synagogue of Dura Europa which dates from the early 3rd century, and of course the catacombs which date even earlier. (By the way, I did an unofficial count of the images in our Nave – the Blessed Virgin is remotely the “topic” of about 10% of the icons, can we then conclude that she isn’t all that important to us? She is there in the catacombs, though I cannot state any percentages from there.) Now the author dismisses them and says: they were just pictures. Ahem…well my niece who is visiting us saw our icon corner and proclaimed: “Cool pictures.” We really do not know for sure to what extent these many many images might have played a role in the worship of the early church…but let’s not get too worked up because I am not claiming here that they had icons and venerated them exactly as we Orthodox do today.

Idolatry is the key to understanding those Bercot quotes. Each and every one of them was written with pagans as the subject or even actually directly to a pagan audience, whose gods were in fact the idols they created. Let us be clear…we Orthodox do NOT worship icons (the wood, the paint, the gold), we do NOT pray TO icons (the wood, the paint, the gold). We worship IN THE PRESENCE of Icons, We pray IN THE PRESENCE of Icons…just like the early church did, how could they not…their walls were covered with them! I’d wager that out churches look more like those ancient churches than ANY protestant church (sticking my tongue out – nyah nyah nyah nyah!). Okay, enough of that silliness. Fact is, we bow, kiss, and prostrate… you bet. The Jews bowed, kissed, and prostrated also – to lots of THINGS, and they still do. Bowing, kissing, and prostrating are expressions greatly and sadly lacking in the western world, and they are in fact COMPLETELY lacking in most protestant circles, for whom it would seem worship ONLY takes place in one’s head! (save the Pentecostals and such who will use some forms of physical prayer and worship.) As I understand it, and can remember it, for Protestants it would almost seem that the only time they’d ever prostrate themselves would be if they perceived themselves to be visibly in God’s presence. Well, when aren’t we?

Didn't God demand reverence for the Ark of the Covenant? Didn't someone die for trying to keep it from falling and hence touch it inappropriately? Didn't the Jews honor, venerate, and bow toward the Ark? Of course, we would say they were not worshipping the golden images (images, images!) of the Cherubim. In the exact same way that we do not worship the mere image of Christ. St. John of Damascus made this clear, no? Additionally, what was inside the Ark? STUFF, numerous THINGS, MATTER, MATERIAL objects. Like then to the Jews, so it is now to us Orthodox (the New Israel), matter matters.

As a side note, when Protestants start tossing around the commandments to attack our icons, I like to ask them what day they go to church and how exactly they keep the Sabbath day holy. I reckon this won’t work with 7th day Adventists, but oh well.

Look, friends, I haven’t the time or energy to rehash these icon issues that were settled 1200 years ago. If you ain’t gonna be convinced by the Fathers who defended the icons, (and I assume that YOU and the author of this piece have actually taken the time to read these works, no?) then how am I going to convince you? We have bigger fish to fry! And it begins with Church. Ecclesiology and Authority. Shall we?

Caffeine…amazing stuff.