The blessing of icons

[Andrew James]

Greetings in the Lord,

Do different Orthodox churches have different traditions in terms of how an icon is blessed? For example how the Greeks and Arabs keep them in the altar for forty days?

In Christ,
Andrew

[Paul Cowan]

Antiochians are 40 days then blessed with Holy water and prayer.

PC

[Father David Moser]

? For example how the Greeks and Arabs keep them in the altar for forty days?


Antiochians are 40 days then blessed with Holy water and prayer.

Just to point out that Antiochians are Arabs, and in fact until it became politically incorrect during the 80's (after the bombing of the US embassy in Lebanon by Syrian backed terrorists), the entity now known as the Antiochian Archdiocese was known as the Syrian Orthodox Church.

Fr David Moser

[Paul Cowan]

Thank you Fr. David,

I know little about the church's ethnicity especially since my parish is 95% anglo. I suppose I should research my "roots" some.

Paul

[Robert Rager]

I brought my Icons from home, and after an evening service, my Priest arranged them on a table in the front of the church. He then blessed them, using some prayers from a small book(if I remember correctly), and used Holy water.

[Effie Ganatsios]

Greetings in the Lord,

Do different Orthodox churches have different traditions in terms of how an icon is blessed? For example how the Greeks and Arabs keep them in the altar for forty days?

In Christ,
Andrew

Andrew James, here in Greece if you buy an icon from an ordinary shop you need to give it to your priest and he keeps it in the church for 40 days and then blesses it.

If you buy or are given an icon from a monastery it has already been blessed and you don't need to do the above.

Effie

[Vitalis]

Unfortunately, as far as I know, in MP they perform mass-blessings that only involves the holy water, so that.

I wanted to ask, is true that the icons that are actually painted are already sanctified when the iconographer puts the initials on it?

[Matthew Namee]

Just to point out that Antiochians are Arabs, and in fact until it became politically incorrect during the 80's (after the bombing of the US embassy in Lebanon by Syrian backed terrorists), the entity now known as the Antiochian Archdiocese was known as the Syrian Orthodox Church.
This isn't precisely accurate. I'll try to give a few examples.

St. George Orthodox Church in Worcester, Massachusetts was the first parish to "jump" to Met Germanos (Shehadi) after St. Raphael's death. They re-incorporated in 1917 under the name "Syrian Antiochian St. George Orthodox Church."

In Philip K. Hitti's book The Syrians in America (1924), written during the Russy-Antaky division, the "Russy" group (led at the time by Aftimios Ofiesh) was called "Syrian Greek Orthodox" and the Antaky group (Met Germanos) "Antiochian Greek Orthodox."

In the 1936 US Census of Religious Bodies (conducted by the Census Bureau and collecting its information directly from the religious bodies themselves), the title given is "Syrian Antiochian Orthodox Church" (united for the briefest of moments).

The earliest issues of The Word magazine (1957) include the notice, "Official publication of the Syrian Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese."

I have a number of old issues of the Archdiocesan Messenger of the "Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of Toledo, Ohio and Dependencies" (with that name on the cover) from the 1960s. This was the archdiocese led by Met Samuel (David) and then Met Michael (Shaheen) until it reunited with the Archdiocese of New York (Met Philip).

These are just examples I found in five minutes' searching in my own library. The point is, the term "Antiochian" came into use in the latter half of the 1910s as a way to differentiate between the "Antaky" group and its "Russy" (or "Syrian") counterpart.

I don't know for certain when the term "Syrian" was dropped from the name of the Archdiocese of New York, but I would think it had as much to do with the term being rather obsolete as anything else. My own family came from what is now Lebanon, but of course until 1948, there was no such state. Everyone from "Greater Syria" called themselves "Syrians," and more importantly, they were known as "Syrians" to everyone else in America. That's no longer done because it doesn't make any sense; lots of Antiochians trace their origins to a "Greater Syria" which no longer exists, and they have adopted the names of the countries which have succeeded it (e.g. Lebanon).

If someone has evidence which contradicts what I am saying, I'd love to see it.

[Olga]

The writing of the inscription on an icon is the final act after the rest of the image is painted. It is common practice for an iconographer to then venerate the icon once it has been completed. That being so, it is then customary to have the icon blessed.

There are two traditions that I know of. The Greek tradition is to leave the icon on the altar of the church for 40 days (the same applies for blessing other objects such as wedding rings). I am not aware of any particular prayers or other office being said over the icon by the priest during this time, or if holy water is sprinkled on the icon.

The Slavic tradition does not insist on a 40-day stay on the altar. There is a short blessing service in the Great Trebnik (Book of Needs) which is read or chanted over the icon, and the ritual includes sprinkling the icon with holy water.

Is it necessary that an icon is blessed by a priest in a church? My understanding is this: An icon (be it painted, or printed and framed or mounted) is an inherently holy object, as it is sanctified by the holiness of the prototype - the saint or feast depicted on it. But the conferring of a church blessing bestows the final imprimatur, as it were.

I would like to think that the custom of having an icon blessed may have arisen to guard against the proliferation or veneration of false or uncanonical images, as a priest with a modicum of iconographic knowledge could refuse to bless such images (and hopefully explain why to the person offering the icon). Sadly, history shows that this has not often been the case.

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Olga wrote:


I would like to think that the custom of having an icon blessed may have arisen to guard against the proliferation or veneration of false or uncanonical images, as a priest with a modicum of iconographic knowledge could refuse to bless such images (and hopefully explain why to the person offering the icon). Sadly, history shows that this has not often been the case.

This is exactly what occurs in my experience from time to time. Parishioners often bring icons, holy objects or other items to be blessed. A 'blessing' really means to read a special prayer over them and then sprinkle them with Holy Water while saying the words: "these icons (or whatever) are sanctified by the sprinkling of this Holy Water in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

Sometimes however these 'other items' are not suitable to be blessed. In this case I return these items without having done a blessing; although in some cases I allow the items to remain on the Altar first during the Liturgy.

So this serves as a kind of vetting process.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Matthew Namee]

I don't know for certain when the term "Syrian" was dropped from the name of the Archdiocese of New York...
Okay, I found the answer to this: At the 1969 convention of the Archdiocese of New York, one of the measures proposed was: "To drop the word 'Syrian' from the official title of the Archdiocese." As I indicated above, the Archdiocese of Toledo was already known as the "Antiochian Archdiocese," without the word "Syrian." When the two archdioceses united in 1975, they took the name, "The Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America."

Source: Fr. Anthony Gabriel, The Ancient Church on New Shores: Antioch in North America (San Bernardino, CA: St. Willibrord's Press, 1996), 137-139.

In its original usage, "Antiochian" seems to have been employed to differentiate between the parishes loyal to the Patriarchate of Antioch (or, originally, Met. Germanos) and those loyal to the Russian Metropolia. The later change in the name of the Archdiocese of New York is tied to the ascendence of Met. Philip a few years earlier. The whole Archdiocese was shifting towards a less ethnocentric approach. "Syrian" had clear ethnic connotations, while "Antiochian" simply referred to the mother church of Antioch. All this took place before the various events of the 1980s to which Fr. David refers.

[Theodoros]

What an interesting topic! I've witnessed both (Greek and Slavonic) methods being used for the blessing of icons. When I was younger, I trying my hand at iconography. Once I completed my first icon, my instructor/priest (trained at Holy Trinity in Jordanville) brought the icon to church and left on the altar for 40 days. Interestingly, when I completed my second icon, our parish priest (who was Greek) read a blessing and sprinkled it with holy water. Both of these blessings took place at the same parish.

[Father David Moser]

All this took place before the various events of the 1980s to which Fr. David refers.

Thank you for correcting my obviously faulty memory and information. I was reciting from memory what I had been instructed by my priest back in the day. Obviously either he was in error - or I misunderstood - or I simply remembered wrong.

Fr David Moser

[Jean-Serge]

Good morning!


I am doing research to understand when the blessing of icons and crosses appeared. Indeed, it is untraditionnal and has been explicitely condemned by the 7th ecumenical council. This seems logical because blessing or consecrating an icon (or a cross) would mean it is not holy per se but it lacks something.

The question was clearly raised during the iconoclast crisis and the iconoclast asked why icons were not blessed, which proves in those time, they were not. Indeed, the orthodox replied icons and cross were not blessed because they needed no blessing since they were holy per se (like the cross). I find this information in an old orthodox review written in French "La lumière du Thabor" numéro 43-44 page 150-151, partly available here :
on googlebooks

http://books.google.fr/books?id=PS7iMx3H1pUC&pg=PA104&dq=joseph+l%27hesychaste&l\
r= (http://books.google.fr/books?id=PS7iMx3H1pUC&pg=PA104&dq=joseph+l%27hesychaste&lr=)

I'm trying a quick translation of page 151-152.


"Argument of the iconoclast read by Gregory, Bishop of Neocesarea : the icons is submitted to no prayer of consecration that may be make it sacred. So it remains as the artist did it : unsacred and deserving no honour.

Answer of the 7th ecumenical council read by Epiphane, deacon of Catania in Sicilia : Let them hear the truth. Many things that we regard as sacred do not receive a prayer for consecration because, per se, and due to the name they bear, they are full of blessings and grace. That's why we honour and venerate them as holy things. So, the representation of the life-giving Cross is venerable, without a prayer or consecration bey s being necessary; and we only have to receive a blessing by this representation. And we believe that the devils are defeated by the veneration we owe to It [the cross] and by the sign we make on our forehead or in the air. And when we honour and venerate it piously, we take part to its blessings. It is the same thing for the icon due to the One which name it's bearing " (session 6, Mansi 13, 269 D,E).

Sorry, it was a very quick translation...

[Olga]

Hello, Jean-Serge, and welcome to the forum.

The blessing of icons - Monachos.net Discussion Community (http://www.monachos.net/forum/showthread.php?p=63636#poststop)


If you haven't read these two posts, please do, as they may help you.

[Jean-Serge]

Hello, Jean-Serge, and welcome to the forum.

The blessing of icons - Monachos.net Discussion Community (http://www.monachos.net/forum/showthread.php?p=63636#poststop)


If you haven't read these two posts, please do, as they may help you.


Thank you for the information. Unfortunately, I'm still unable to find when the practice of blessing icons arrived and why. I've asked the question and some say in the second part of the 20th. By the way, I know that some people strictly refuse to perform such blessing (in which they are right according to me) for the reason I mentioned.

If something is already holy, nothing more can be added by a new ceremony. Blessing is like saying the icon per se is unefficient. I find it "half iconoclast".

I'm not very convinced either by the argument of checking the canonicity of the icon. Indeed, I was told that every year, the Cappadocians checked the icons to see if they were correct but this did not implied a blessing. By the way, you can bring an icon to be checked without having it blessed.

I have an assumption that the practice could come from the catholic practice to bless statues but I am entirely unable to find historical sources about this. An interesting thing would be to check Prayer books along the ages and see when and where these prayers appeared. It seems that the most common Trebnikin in Russia was from Peter Moghila who was influenced by catholicism. This may be a trail to explore. Another trail would be to look at old believers books to see if they have such practices.

[Eric Peterson]

I think there's a rather Western issue here at work, when we talk about the holy vs. the profane in the case of something like icons. An icon, provided it's done right, is a holy thing. A blessing doesn't "make" it holy. To me, it seems like the last step in making the icon. The same for Crosses.

There are people who claim, for example, rightly or wrongly, that Jewish (and, I suppose, various other anti-Christian) shoemakers put Crosses on the bottom of shoes so that people will walk on the Cross and dishonor it. Whether this is true or not, and it sounds like something out of the Protocols, it is ridiculous to logic. Following the same logic, every sidewalk, every linoleum floor, even every intersection would be a Cross, and walking or driving over it would be dishonoring the Cross. This is nuts.

The Cross and the icon need to be made for that purpose. Then, further, the blessing, to me, signifies a sort of "Amen" to the pious act of making a Cross or icon.

In the area of icons, we haven't even touched on the ubiquitous digital images, some of which are ancient copies, but others of which are reproduced or even created without prayer or reverence, but these too are blessed, and their purpose is the same.

There is also the matter of iconography on church bulletins and newsletters. To some, these are not real icons because they're not painted, or mounted, or blessed. But they are still holy images because of who they depict. So, throwing them away carelessly, littering them on the ground, walking on them would still be showing callous disregard for the image, and also the one depicted there.

[Eric Peterson]

Thinking about this topic some more, I've concluded that blessing an icon or Cross, as a liturgical, sacramental act, is simply natural for the Church, which has blessings for everything and an infinity of sacramental acts. True, painting an icon according to the Church rules is a sacramental act, but so is baking prosphora, and we know that the baking is not the end of the story, but that the prosphora becomes Communion and antidoron through the Church sacrament of the Divine Liturgy and the blessing of the priest.

I can't think of anything in the Church that is technically done without or independent of the sacraments, liturgy, or hierarchy. An iconographer, after all, has a blessing from a priest. It's all related and interdependent, it seems to me.

So, it seems a matter of great absurdity that we would accept that an item like an icon or Cross would bless itself, without a sacramental service, since these items are for the Church, and the Church blesses everything inside it. To claim that blessing icons and Crosses is anti-traditional seems to me to be a manifestation of gross ignorance.

[Theodora E.]

In the two parishes I've been members of (heavily-convert Antiochian and mostly cradle-OCA), icons have been blessed the same way - you give to the priest before Liturgy (or maybe on Saturday evening at Vespers), he blesses them with holy water, and they sit on the altar for the entire Liturgy. This is also done for baptismal crosses (if the godparents are organized enough to get them to the priest the Sunday before, otherwise, they're blessed by being dipped in the baptismal font) or for my gold medallion of the Theotokos I wear on the same chain as my cross.

[Paul Cowan]

In the two parishes I've been members of (heavily-convert Antiochian and mostly cradle-OCA), icons have been blessed the same way - you give to the priest before Liturgy (or maybe on Saturday evening at Vespers), he blesses them with holy water, and they sit on the altar for the entire Liturgy.

In my parish we give to the priest who places them around the High place behind the altar for 40 days and then he blesses them with Holy water and gives them back to us.

Paul

[Jean-Serge]

To claim that blessing icons and Crosses is anti-traditional seems to me to be a manifestation of gross ignorance.

The answer was given by 7th ecumenical council, the highest authority I would trust

"Argument of the iconoclast read by Gregory, Bishop of Neocesarea : the icons is submitted to no prayer of consecration that may be make it sacred. So it remains as the artist did it : unsacred and deserving no honour.

Answer of the 7th ecumenical council read by Epiphane, deacon of Catania in Sicilia : Let them hear the truth. Many things that we regard as sacred do not receive a prayer for consecration because, per se, and due to the name they bear, they are full of blessings and grace. That's why we honour and venerate them as holy things. So, the representation of the life-giving Cross is venerable, without a prayer or consecration bey s being necessary; and we only have to receive a blessing by this representation. And we believe that the devils are defeated by the veneration we owe to It [the cross] and by the sign we make on our forehead or in the air. And when we honour and venerate it piously, we take part to its blessings. It is the same thing for the icon due to the One which name it's bearing " (session 6, Mansi 13, 269 D,E).


By the way, old believers that kept ancient practices and traditional athonite monks do not bless icons either. The accusation of ignorance is not justified due to the council opinion and the aforementioned practices.

[Andrew D. Morrell]

Interesting. I wonder how many iconographers were culled from the laity at the time of the 7th council... or was there strict oversight on all iconographers? Or... how many icons were made from printed paper applied to a wood backing back at the time of the 7th Ecumenical Council? Certainly, these icons are used by the Lord: the Myrrh-streaming Hawaiian-Iveron icon of the Mother of God is paper on wood... it has pierced many hard hearts, mine included.

How about icons painted and sold by wingnuts posing as Orthodox? There are a few online sites that fool the faithful... can those icons be "blessed enough" to be usable?

What about a marriage, considered an icon of the Trinity? Should it be blessed? Well, of course. I know... off topic.

Thank you for your thought provoking post, Jean.

In Christ,
Andrew



The answer was given by 7th ecumenical council, the highest authority I would trust

"Argument of the iconoclast read by Gregory, Bishop of Neocesarea : the icons is submitted to no prayer of consecration that may be make it sacred. So it remains as the artist did it : unsacred and deserving no honour.

Answer of the 7th ecumenical council read by Epiphane, deacon of Catania in Sicilia : Let them hear the truth. Many things that we regard as sacred do not receive a prayer for consecration because, per se, and due to the name they bear, they are full of blessings and grace. That's why we honour and venerate them as holy things. So, the representation of the life-giving Cross is venerable, without a prayer or consecration bey s being necessary; and we only have to receive a blessing by this representation. And we believe that the devils are defeated by the veneration we owe to It [the cross] and by the sign we make on our forehead or in the air. And when we honour and venerate it piously, we take part to its blessings. It is the same thing for the icon due to the One which name it's bearing " (session 6, Mansi 13, 269 D,E).


By the way, old believers that kept ancient practices and traditional athonite monks do not bless icons either. The accusation of ignorance is not justified due to the council opinion and the aforementioned practices.

[Ryan]

Jean-Serge- I see that the Council considered the blessing to be unnecessary, but I don't see how this amounts to the "condemnation" you mentioned earlier.

[Olga]

Dear Jean-Serge

I have been following your contributions on this thread with great interest. Canons of ecumenical and synodal councils have always been regarded by the Orthodox Church as guides and standards, not as rigid, immutable rules, other than those which are of a directly doctrinal and dogmatic nature, such as, for example, those which deal with the of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed (that no changes to its content are permitted), or the nature and status of the Mother of God (Theotokos, not Christotokos) and her ever-virginity.

The Orthodox Church has quite correctly never wavered from maintaining and defending these sorts of canons. Doctrinal/dogmatic canons are in a different category to pastoral canons. A good example of pastoral canons which no longer apply to Orthodox practice are those concerning married bishops. Bishops were once married men, but have been drawn from monastic, celibate ranks since about the 6th century. Does this mean that the Church has been in error since that time in specifying that bishops be celibate?

However, as others have pointed out, the circumstances of today may well be quite different from those of the eighth century. With regard to iconography, icons are no longer only painted with much prayer and fasting using "natural" pigments and egg-tempera, but are now painted (with prayer and fasting) using "synthetic" acrylic paints. Far more frequently, in churches and in homes, the icons present there are paper prints which are either mounted on board or framed behind glass. Sure, the original icon from which the print was derived would have been painted with proper prayer and fasting, but what of the prints themselves? What of icons where people have downloaded an online image and printed it on their home printer attached to their computer, and then framed or mounted the printed icon?

One could argue that such an icon is inherently holy, without the need for a church blessing. Someone with a good knowledge of iconography may be content with that, but this cannot be relied upon, as, dare I say, iconography is the most visible manifestation and expression of Orthodoxy, yet it is its least well-understood element.

Similarly, baptismal crosses these days are mass-produced, and most often not by Orthodox sources. In countries where Orthodoxy is not the dominant faith, one simply buys a cross from a jeweller who is, most likely, not Orthodox, and, in some cases, not even of the Christian faith. This comment is in no way meant to criticise such people, but to point out that the ideals which may have existed in centuries past do not necessarily apply now. The fact that the Great Book of Needs does contain blessing services for all sorts of objects (crosses, icons, chariots - these days used for motor vehicles - etc) should make one think.

[Jean-Serge]

Hello Olga,

I agree with you but I fear that this icon stuff has a theological and dogmatical background (I would say like no kneeling on Sunday, day of Resurrection). If one asserts that an icon absolutely needs a blessing to be regarding as such, he is holding an iconoclast or half-iconoclast position because this was an iconoclast argument.

May I give detail on the possible iconoclasm or half-iconoclasm in this.

The iconoclast (7th century) : "the icon is not blessed, so it cannot receive any veneration. Furthermore, no blessing prayer exists. So the icon is an innovation that does not belong to church tradition. If it belonged to, than we could find consecration prayers"

Now, if the orthodox answers : OK, we are going to compose blessing prayers for icons

The iconoclast (7th century) : So you recognize that your icon lacks something and that you must add a blessing. So it is not holy per se.

But the actual church answer was : we do not add blessing because it does need blessing and is holy per se

The iconoclast anti-orthodox (21st century) : you used to say in the 7th century that icons did not need blessings because they are holy per se. Now, you are blessing them saying : "Wherefore we pray You, send forth Your blessing upon this Icon, and with the sprinkling of hallowed water". You have altered your faith and your theology about icon.


Personally, since there is a theological and dogmatical background around this, I keep the traditional path (like old believers, some athonites, some old calendarists too), I'd rather die than have my icons blessed.

By the way, a question for those of you that like icon blessing : "does an unblessed icon lack something according to you?"

Now you raise an interesting thing : the true icon would not need blessing because it was written correctly while the "second class icon" would need one. It is possible. I have no opinion on it...

The prayer book are a good indication too. However, a good indication is the evolution of prayer books. Like I told, old believers do not have those prayers. According Wladimir Guettée, in his History of the Church (he was a catholic priest who joined the church of Russia in the late 19s), the euchologion does not have this prayer either (of which euchologion was he talking about? the ones he could see of this time, I can't know this). So may be the Greeks did not have it but it came later : from what, why? I don't know. Have someone studied the possibility that these prayers could have been added by Peter Moghila in Russia under catholic influence?

Just an opinion about "paper icons". In ancient times people used to have one or two painted icons at home. When they died, they were given to church. They had no more because it was a little expensive. Now we have many paper icons at home that are cheap. It's my own case (but I stopped buying paper icons). I think we should made some financial effort to buy painted icons, first because it would help iconographers, secondly we are to offer a pure adoration as much as we can (for instance using bee wax candles -the alternative of bee wax appears to be the rest of oil refinement- or olive oil an so on). Of course, there are miraculous paper icon just as there are miraculous icons with the Father represented as an old man

By the way, you can find quite unexpensive true icons in Georgia. Do not look for the ones that are made by well known iconographers but by less popular ones. The job is the same but cheaper...

As regards the cross, any sign or symbol of the cross is sacred. That's why christians were forbidden by a council (I should search which) to draw cross in the floor lest the sacred symbol may be trampled.

Sorry for long reply, if someone finds something new, he can tell me.

[Jean-Serge]

Jean-Serge- I see that the Council considered the blessing to be unnecessary, but I don't see how this amounts to the "condemnation" you mentioned earlier.

The question is not "condemnation". I would compare this question with the kneeling on Sunday. The council clearly said : Sunday being the day of Resurrection, don't kneel. But however, misinformed people kneel (particularly true in Romania). Who talked about "condemnation"?

[Nina]

Wow! I did not know all these facts that Mr. Jean-Serge posted. I do not like to part (even for 40 days) with my icons after I purchase them (hi hi hi) so I take a shortcut and purchase them in churches, or monasteries. My "greed" for icons has made me "smart". :)

[Olga]

Jean-Serge, time does not permit me to comment on all of your concerns, so I will comment on a few of them:


The iconoclast (7th century) : "the icon is not blessed, so it cannot receive any veneration. Furthermore, no blessing prayer exists. So the icon is an innovation that does not belong to church tradition. If it belonged to, than we could find consecration prayers"


Now, if the orthodox answers : OK, we are going to compose blessing prayers for icons

The iconoclast (7th century) : So you recognize that your icon lacks something and that you must add a blessing. So it is not holy per se.

But the actual church answer was : we do not add blessing because it does need blessing and is holy per se


The iconoclast anti-orthodox (21st century) : you used to say in the 7th century that icons did not need blessings because they are holy per se. Now, you are blessing them saying : "Wherefore we pray You, send forth Your blessing upon this Icon, and with the sprinkling of hallowed water". You have altered your faith and your theology about icon.


You have missed the point of the distinction which must be made between pastoral canons and dogmatic/doctrinal canons, which I explained in my previous post. To state "You have altered your faith and your theology about icon" shows your misunderstanding of my position, and, much more importantly, that of centuries of Orthodox practice. Those who have become familiar with my posts on this forum over the years would know that I do my best to uphold and defend proper Orthodox iconographic tradition.



Personally, since there is a theological and dogmatical background around this

Could you provide more information on this theological and dogmatic background?



I keep the traditional path (like old believers, some athonites, some old calendarists too)

May I mention that a "traditional path", does not necessarily mean that this path is correct, if this path is promoted by schismatic Orthodox groups. A good example of this is the position taken by the Matthewite Old Calendarists, who proclaim the "New Testament Trinity" of Christ, God the Father as an old man, and the Holy Spirit as a dove hovering above them, is the proper and canonical icon of the Trinity, and denounce the icon of the Trinity of the three angels at the Oak of Mamre based on the icon of the Hospitality of Abraham as uncanonical.

Here is some useful information:

Who are the Old Calendarists? - Page 3 - Monachos.net Discussion Community (http://www.monachos.net/forum/showthread.php?p=62145#poststop)


I'd rather die than have my icons blessed.

My friend, there is no need to go to such extremes. Consider this: are not the icons, be they painted or printed, in an Orthodox church, censed by the priest or deacon at every service? At the Hours? At the Polyeleos during a Vigil? at Vespers? All these censings have the same effect as a blessing. Is this wrong? Consider also the situation where relics of a saint are brought to a church and a supplicatory service is served in honour of the relics. Is it wrong or uncanonical to place items such as icons or crosses or prayer ropes on the reliquary to receive a blessing, to be sanctified, during such a service? The book of Acts has something to say about this.



I think we should made some financial effort to buy painted icons, first because it would help iconographers, secondly we are to offer a pure adoration as much as we can (for instance using bee wax candles -the alternative of bee wax appears to be the rest of oil refinement- or olive oil an so on).


My friend, buying painted icons where I live was impossible until perhaps ten or fifteen years ago, unless one was prepared to travel to Greece, Russia, or other countries, to buy icons. Where I live, there are probably no more than three or four iconographers who are capable of producing work which is worthy of being called iconography, both in artistic skill, and, much more importantly, in content consistent with liturgical, doctrinal and canonical integrity. Also, an icon printed on paper which is canonical in content is beyond question more beneficial spiritually than a skillfully painted image whose content is theologically or doctrinally wrong - such as images of the NT Trinity or Christ Holy Wisdom, etc.

Regarding olive oil as being the "only" proper oil for oil lamps, again, here's some food for thought:

Monachos.net Discussion Community - View Single Post - What type of oil to use in a lampada? (http://www.monachos.net/forum/showpost.php?p=66802&postcount=1)
What type of oil to use in a lampada? - Monachos.net Discussion Community (http://www.monachos.net/forum/showthread.php?p=66847#poststop)

[Jean-Serge]

Could you provide more information on this theological and dogmatic background?


I'm doing some more readings about the iconoclast controversy and when I finish it, I'll try to explain why I fear there is a dogmatical or theological background in this question of blessing icons. The subject is a little hard for me so, I need much thinking. By the way, I'm an old calendarist too.

[Ilaria]

T kneeling on Sunday. The council clearly said : Sunday being the day of Resurrection, don't kneel. But however, misinformed people kneel (particularly true in Romania).

This subject particularly interests me. I have a wonderful book written by Gabriel Bunge, Personal Prayer Practice according to the Holy Fathers. I would recommend it to everybody here, it has wonderful extracts from the Fathers regarding prayer.

Since I've started my life in church of course I met different opinions regarding how to pray, how to stay etc
After a lot of confusing ideas and opinions, I said to myself that the right opinion for me would be that of my father; so I choose to follow it. I mention hereby that in our church people do kneel during liturgy; that sometimes they do not have space enough for this it is a secondary issue.As cited above by Jean Serge, kneeling on Sundays is a practice in Romania.
However I have to mention that I was quite surprised when I first attended a service in Greece seeing there most of the people sitting on chairs during the Holy Liturgy.

But, coming back to the book, the most wonderful thing I discover was that, according to the Fathers, the position in prayer is an image of the inner state; in prayer, we may vary from the feeling of kneeling before the Almighty to the feeling of standing upright before His Face and Glory.
Of course, Sunday is the day of Resurrection and - according to the rules - we should stand up... Ok, but as others pointed here, this was the case when people used to frequent the church much more than now;
but in these times, when most of the people hardly manage to come to the church only on Sundays, I feel that their inner state demand how to stay before God; if you allow me, I think that they condense in the Sunday service the whole week services...because is the only service they afford to participate

I would like to hear more opinions regarding this subject, if possible and you find it interesting.

[Nina]

Kneeling on Sunday (unless during Lent and fasting periods) is not appropriate because God lifted us from Hades by His Glorious Resurrection on the day of Sunday. We have the entire week for kneeling in church, or privately. And this practice maybe makes us more aware of the importance of Sunday and the commandment to keep Sunday which is from God, and repeated constantly by the Fathers. It sets Sunday apart from the rest of the days.

[Anthony Stokes]

Kneeling on Sunday (unless during Lent and fasting periods) is not appropriate because God lifted us from Hades by His Glorious Resurrection on the day of Sunday. We have the entire week for kneeling in church, or privately. And this practice maybe makes us more aware of the importance of Sunday and the commandment to keep Sunday which is from God, and repeated constantly by the Fathers. It sets Sunday apart from the rest of the days.

Not to get too far off topic, well I guess it is, but...It is interesting to note that there are 3 times during the Liturgy on weekdays when the people are supposed to prostrate, not kneel, and none of those are during the Great Entrance or the "consecration," which are the two times many people kneel on Sundays.

The three prescribed times are: 1) When the priest says "Let us give thanks to the Lord" and the choir sings "It is meet and right to worship..." 2) during the Lord's Prayer and 3) when the gifts are brought out at communion. A 4th time could be when the clergy prostrate at the epiclesis after the priest says "changing them ..." "amen. amen. amen." But again, it is a single prostration, not kneeling.

OK, back to icon blessings, I guess.
Sbdn. Anthony

[Eric Peterson]

An interesting point.

Well, according to one of the canons of the Council in Trullo, which have been joined (rightly or wrongly) to the 5th and 6th Ecumenical Councils, the people and the priest ought to be communing in the same way, in the hand.

There are lots of things in the Church that were done at one time and are not done now. Fewer of the things that went out of fashion, so to speak, were brought back into practice--two would be having no memorial services Sundays and frequent communion (Kollyvades Fathers), and these are still rather controversial centuries later.

There is an anecdote about monks from the Holy Mountain who found a Vespers service from over 1,000 years ago and they wanted to use it, but an elder would not give the blessing for it because it went against the established order.

Others, who have desired to edit or trim the liturgical services have been opposed on the grounds that our services developed under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and to delete things because they were later additions would be to go contrary to the Holy Spirit's direction.

Now, one can argue what exactly the Holy Spirit is doing in the Church. Good luck. If you have an inside line on the work of God in the Church, besides the salvation of souls, you've surpassed the greatest elders surely.

If the blessing of icons, kneeling on Sundays, communing from a spoon, congregational singing, etc. were matters of heresy or grave error, God would raise up enlightened saints to deal with these issues. He gave us the Kollyvades Fathers. They were persecuted and maligned and still today there are all sorts of opinions against what they preached, but unlike issues of dogma, their reforms were not imminent matters of life or death for the Church, that is, the Kollyvades Fathers were not fighting heretics, but correcting errors in Church practice. To my mind, though some might disagree, it is the same with the calendar issue. As the holy priest Demetrios Gagastathis said, if the New Calendar churches have no grace, how come the fire of the Holy Spirit still descends on the Holy Gifts on the altar, and, I might add, for that matter, at Jerusalem for the Orthodox Patriarch? That is, there are saints on both sides. This is nothing new in historical Church controversies. (St. John Chrysostom vs. Sts. Epiphanius of Cyprus and Cyril of Alexandria, St. Theodore of Canterbury vs. St. Wilfrid of York, St. Joseph of Volokolamsk vs. St. Nil of Sorsky, St. Tarasius vs. St. Photius, the Stoglov Council which anathematized the three-finger cross vs. the Great Council of Moscow which anathematized the two-finger cross, and the list goes on.)

[Herman Blaydoe]

In this thread, the topic is the discussion on the blessing of icons. The topic of kneeling on Sundays has been discussed in several other threads. I would remind you all that the search feature of the forum is very powerful. Try clicking on "Search" and simply type in "kneeling Sunday" and several threads will be shown. If you are interested I recommend you scan through those. If you feel there are other things to be said on that subject, you can either jump into one of those threads or start another if you like.

Herman the moderating Pooh

[Matthew Panchisin]

Dear Herman,

It is good to have friendly reminders, but I'm not so sure that I agree with your suggestion and I'll try to explain why.

I think placing things into categories as though they are not connected renders more and more disconnections that can never really be addressed while such activities continue on. While collections of data can be of use for organizing things, what often ends up happening is man often re-arranges that data and can develop some rather inconsistent understandings that are way out of sync with the Churches patristic inheritance. Men cutting trees for organization purposes or to study stacks of tree rings and re- organize the branches and fruit limits the harvest of fruit. While having subjects organized is good and required for a manageable presentation of subject matter, it might be better for many of us if the moderators would allow threads to stay on subject matter according to the views and sight of others as well. In other words, might not others who see the blessing of icons and the topic of kneeling on Sundays as related even though such opinions are discordant with yours contribute or express those understandings in the discussion community as well? Surely others are free to see within the corpus of patristic text these are not outlined as unrelated. Stacks of tree rings that man can create by organizing them as some see a fit makes some strange looking trees. Perhaps when such views are allowed to be placed where they are intented to be placed by others as well they might be of benefit to more than one or two isolated views of things.

In Christ,

Matthew Panchisin

[Steven Bigham]

Good morning!


I am doing research to understand when the blessing of icons and crosses appeared. Indeed, it is untraditionnal and has been explicitely condemned by the 7th ecumenical council. This seems logical because blessing or consecrating an icon (or a cross) would mean it is not holy per se but it lacks something.

The question was clearly raised during the iconoclast crisis and the iconoclast asked why icons were not blessed, which proves in those time, they were not. Indeed, the orthodox replied icons and cross were not blessed because they needed no blessing since they were holy per se (like the cross). I find this information in an old orthodox review written in French "La lumière du Thabor" numéro 43-44 page 150-151, partly available here :
on googlebooks

http://books.google.fr/books?id=PS7iMx3H1pUC&pg=PA104&dq=joseph+l%27hesychaste&l\
r= (http://books.google.fr/books?id=PS7iMx3H1pUC&pg=PA104&dq=joseph+l%27hesychaste&lr=)

I'm trying a quick translation of page 151-152.


"Argument of the iconoclast read by Gregory, Bishop of Neocesarea : the icons is submitted to no prayer of consecration that may be make it sacred. So it remains as the artist did it : unsacred and deserving no honour.

Answer of the 7th ecumenical council read by Epiphane, deacon of Catania in Sicilia : Let them hear the truth. Many things that we regard as sacred do not receive a prayer for consecration because, per se, and due to the name they bear, they are full of blessings and grace. That's why we honour and venerate them as holy things. So, the representation of the life-giving Cross is venerable, without a prayer or consecration bey s being necessary; and we only have to receive a blessing by this representation. And we believe that the devils are defeated by the veneration we owe to It [the cross] and by the sign we make on our forehead or in the air. And when we honour and venerate it piously, we take part to its blessings. It is the same thing for the icon due to the One which name it's bearing " (session 6, Mansi 13, 269 D,E).

Sorry, it was a very quick translation...

Dear Jean-Serge,
Perhaps you and I are the only people who question the practice of blessing icons. Everyone else seems to accept the practice as though it came down with Moses from Mount Sinai. Being interested in iconology and after studying iconoclasm, I too wanted to investigate the history and theology of the practice to see if it conforms to the Church's Holy Tradition or if in fact it contradicts that Tradition. The result of that study is published in Iconologie: Neuf Études, by the Orthodox Research Institute. The title and article are in French, but I don't think that is a problem for you, "Bénir les icônes: Conforme à la Tradition de l'Église orthodoxe, oui ou non? I'm presently working on an English translation which I hope to publish and may put on my website, srbigham.com: "Blessing Icons: Does It Agree with the Orthodox Church's Tradition, Yes or No? I don't think anyone should be surprised that we do things in the Church that are not exactly in line with Holy Tradition. Witness the "images" of God the Father and other such heretical pictures. That's why I think it is fully legitimate to question such a practice, especially when we know the history of the question. It is very strange indeed to hear some of the arguments set out for justifying the blessing icons and to examine the blessing prayers themselves to become aware that in fact they express precisely the notions of the iconoclasts and the opposite of the 7th Ecumenical Council and the Fathers of the Church. How is it possible that such a reversal could have taken place? I'm not sure why, I have some ideas, but that it happened seems to me, after my investigation, undeniable. In fact, a Greek monk priest friend of mine, not exactly a wild-eyed, fly-by-night liberal, came to the same conclusion as I did after learning about the history of icon blessing. I know it is hard for some to imagine that anyone could possibly question what is presently done in our Church. It runs against the grain, but just Fr. George Florovsky's word pseudomorphosis ought to awaken in us Orthodox our critical minds. The whole renaissance of canonical iconography, going on for 150 years now, owes its existence precisely to some few--vive Ouspensky and Kontaglou--who sensed that something was not exactly "kosher" in the realm of iconography. So anyway, I would be interested in hearing from the brethern and the sistern on this question. Have a nice day.

[Ryan]

As I said before, I can see why one would consider the blessing unnecessary, but I take issue with the original assertion that this blessing was "explicitly condemned" by the 7th Ecumenical Council. It wasn't. No one has produced a canon against blessing icons, so it is not comparable to kneeling on Sundays or anything like that. The arguments of the iconoclasts are not being reproduced here- I think it's clear that we should respect all icons, blessed or not. Hence, if one's church prints icons on the bulletin, you shouldn't simply throw these in the trash, even though they aren't blessed.

[M.C. Steenberg]

I think this topic also broaches the wider issue of what is meant by asking whether a Church practice are or are not 'in accord with Church tradition'. Certainly, the tradition of the Church is part of its Body as a living organism in Christ: it is the Church that is the mother of its tradition, not its child. So, for example, the Church today has a longstanding practice of blessing icons -- a practice that includes prayers in the clerical service books, etc. -- which may or may not be disparate with, for example, what was done in the Church in the 8th century, or the 13th. But difference does not necessarily mean opposition; nor does developing ecclesiastical practice mean a betrayal of tradition.

There seem to be a number of precise issues in this discussion:

Whether or not there is an explicit condemnation of the blessing of icons at the 7th council; and if not, what it actually said on the matter.
Whether blessing icons is a comprehensible practice theologically, apart from the question of that council. How does it relate, for example, to the blessing of other things (altars, crosses, water, food, oil, etc.) in the Church?
Whether the practice of blessing icons represents a change in Orthodox traditional practice, or not.


Rather than speak in broad sweeps, it might be helpful to focus in on some of these specific points (or others).

INXC, Dcn Matthew

[Matthew Panchisin]

I have known many iconographers in my life as an Orthodox Christian.

It is within the living tradition of the Church for the iconographers not to feel worthy of painting such images, hence they present them or have the faithful present them to the bishops or Priests to be blessed. Remove those traditions and the ones that do the removing of them remove themselves, lest they should hold on to the traditions that have been handed down to them.

In Christ,

Matthew Panchisin

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Matthew,

Yes, quite. I think you've summarised rather well a response to what was my third bullet point in my little post above, as well as my overarching point there; namely, that the tradition of the Church is an organic part of her life, not a fixed and static wall by which she is enclosed. To dismiss the living tradition of the Church on grounds that it is discordant with what she did in the past, for this reason and it alone, is hardly a 'traditional' argument. There are any number of examples we could draw that make this clear: one might be confession. It is clear that in early centuries, confession was primarily a public, communal practice, where the penitent confessed his sins before all. As the practice of the Church developed, this became primarily personal in form, with the priest hearing the penitent's confession in the more or less 'private' context of a personal interaction before an icon in the Church. Were we to suggest abandoning private confession because it goes against the older tradition of the Church, as a kind of 'betrayal' of true tradition, we would be denying that the Church is the mother and source of tradition, making her rather its slave. We risk denying that the Church is the true abode of the guiding Spirit, whose head is the ever-present pastor, Christ. This is certainly not Orthodox ecclesiology. Yet this is what I do see in some of this particular argument, when it crops up with respect to blessing icons.

This I think is a basic fact of ecclesiology. But there are still the theological questions of icons and blessings that are well worth discussing.

For example (back to my second bullet point), something that is critical to examine in this discussion is the very nature of why and how we bless things in the Church, and the nature of the things we bless. What we we bless - and why do we bless it? What words do we use?

There's plenty to be learnt here.

INXC, Dcn Matthew

[Michael Stickles]

I saw an interesting comment in an Orthodox America article (http://www.roca.org/OA/112/112g.htm) regarding the blessing of icons (emphasis is mine):


Here we will add a few words about the blessing of icons. Very often, seeing a newly-painted icon and desiring to venerate it, people ask: Is it sanctified (osviachshennaya)? This is not an ancient custom. (In the Book of Needs, the rite is called "blessing" not "sanctification" and should be regarded as an adornment by the Church of the given icon, not as a sacramental act. In buying a new Bible, no one thinks of having it blessed according to some rite before reading it.)

Perhaps this way of viewing things might provide a more widely acceptable perspective on the practice? Just a thought.

In Christ,
Michael

[Jean-Serge]

There seem to be a number of precise issues in this discussion:

Whether or not there is an explicit condemnation of the blessing of icons at the 7th council; and if not, what it actually said on the matter.
Whether blessing icons is a comprehensible practice theologically, apart from the question of that council. How does it relate, for example, to the blessing of other things (altars, crosses, water, food, oil, etc.) in the Church?
Whether the practice of blessing icons represents a change in Orthodox traditional practice, or not.


Rather than speak in broad sweeps, it might be helpful to focus in on some of these specific points (or others).

INXC, Dcn Matthew


The answer to the questions are all in Father Stephan's study (that I haven't bought yet). The reading will be very profitable for us all, I think. A French website long ago gave a summary of his study : http://www.orthodoxie.com/2008/06/recension-stpha.html


Dans une dernière étude, le Père Stéphane Bigham pose la question de savoir si bénir les icônes est conforme ou pas à la tradition de l’Église. Il montre que la bénédiction des icônes est une coutume introduite au XVIIe siècle dans l’Église orthodoxe du fait d’influences catholiques. Les textes de conciles et des Pères (qu’il cite largement) considèrent que les icônes sont vénérables et saintes du fait qu’elles représentent fidèlement leur prototype et du fait qu’elles en portent le nom, et non du fait d’une bénédiction ajoutée. Il nous semble cependant que, à notre époque où les icônes se sont répandues dans diverses milieux souvent inconscients de leur signification, de leur valeur et de leur fonction, le fait de les faire bénir à l’église par leur prêtre est un rappel utile non seulement de leur sacralité mais de leur ecclésialité.
Jean-Claude Larchet


This is a quick translation.

In a last study, Father Stephan Bigham raises the question to know if blessing icons is abiding or not by the Church tradition. He shows that the blessing of icons is a practice introduced in the 17th century due to catholic influences. The texts of the councils and the Fathers (that he quotes a lot) regard the icons as venerable and holy because they faithfully reprent their prototype and because they bear the name of icon and not because they were added a blessing. It seems to us [Jean-Claude Larchet speaking there] that in ou times when icons are present in different places and among different persons that are not aware of their meaning, their value or function, having them blessed at church by the priest usefully remember their sacred and ecclesiastic nature.

Jean-Claude Larchet