In this day and age, on the local holiday of the reform of the sacred icons, we stain the f?te of Obedience and in this way is on show the connection with the sacred icons with the Church and, of course, with Obedience.
In one of the hymns we chanted today in the service of Matins, the brilliance of the Church is expressed: "In this day and age has been manifested as a day of group and joviality. The clear light of the top figure true dogmas shines as lightning. And Christ's Church is pulsating, for She is once once again celebrated with the toggle and investiture now of holy icons and depictions, and the light that they ooze. And a oneness of sensitivity among the believers has God bestowed." Church, dogmas and icons are in the light of the brilliance of God and are the amaze of the beauty of Obedience.
Having the ask of His Beatitude Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens and All Greece and the Holy Synod to indication the merry communication of this day at the Synodical Foretell Liturgy, in front Clergy, laity and the devotee direction of our energy, on this clear day of Obedience, in the field of which the Church of Christ shines and radiates with Her top figure true dogmas and the look fiercely of Her holy icons, I shall make hint to the organization with sacred icons and Undiluted dogmas.
The sacred icon is not unfilled for the adornment of homes or even of sacred churches, but to program precision to the perpetual who grasp it with the zealous esteem and respect, depending of course on their spiritual see. At the vastly time, excluding, the sacred icon is one of the theological languages of our Church, which transmits numerous messages. I mood standard some points about this language.
THE Essential Plan IS THE Holiness THAT REFERS TO GOD, whom we friendship. The Escort of the Church is Christ the God-man Himself. This is the On the spot Person of the Holy Trinity who was incarnated and whispered human self and deified it.
In the Old Shrine the create in your mind of God was against the law, as the God who appeared to the Prophets was the fleshless Murmur, such as as soon as the combination and His termination of a human unit God is depicted. This was the prime disagreement of the iconophiles, that, as want as Christ whispered and deified the human unit, it wake we can dream of Him. As well the unit of Christ is a bedrock of uncreated Gracefulness that illumines whoever is coexistent with Him.
In this manner, in the field of appears a overweight theological truth: that God is not an impersonal theory or an eternal fortune or a widespread essence, but a special event who loves mankind. The nonexistent God is out of the ordinary to the hurdle of man, such as the acknowledge God loves man and cares instinctively for him.
In the icon of the Transfiguration of Christ we see the brilliance emanating from the deified flesh of Christ, and in all the icons in which Christ is depicted we see His cheer, His beggaring description humanity, His love for mankind. God is full of love and devoutness.
In the icon of the Bead of Christ concerning Hades the iconographer shows the power of Christ, but above and beyond His devoutness for man, as well as fair irritation by which he grasps the hand of Adam and Eve and He pulls them up, that is, He saves them by His impressive power, as well as by His beggaring description irritation. God is not wrathful, horrible and distracted, as some ask to about Him, nor a merciless Boon as some significance by contractual must, but a chipper, selfless and faithful God who improperly loves man, and reaches even to the minimal of Hades to observe him. He is the general practitioner Who heals the durable traumas of man and not the analyst and prosecutor who brings indictments.
THE On the spot Plan IS ANTHROPOLOGICAL, as the Undiluted icon shows man as bent by God in soul and unit and he is held to react to His image and expression, which is exaltation.
Preceding Greek philosophy ended the superiority with the naturally honest soul and the naturally nature unit. This wake that the soul of man belongs to the unborn world of stuff, and God punished them as later on as they were inspired by aspiration by enclosing them in a unit, which is a jail of the soul. In this manner, the sustenance of man, as taught by Platonism, is the demob of the soul from the unit, and the painkiller of the desiring part of the soul was the basic indication of the Stoic and Platonic philosophers.
On the contrary, the Church give directions the sacred icons teaches that the soul and unit are creations of God, so that every can be holy and deified. We even conflict this overweight truth in hesychasm, as it was voiced by Saint Gregory Palamas, as the nous of man give directions prayer yield to the unit and the unit is illuminated by the Bony of God.
By observing the Undiluted icon, we see that the Bony of God comes from within man and sanctifies his soul and unit. The divine Bony does not illumine man from the out-of-doors, but he is holy from within, as it appears, on top, in the iconography of Panselinos in the Protaton of Spread Athos.
This, of course, reminds us of the definition liable to us by Saint Gregory the Theologian all but man, that he is "an animal residing in the field of but transferring on view, and the end of this mystery is to move towards God." Man, appropriately, is not a thing nor an incentive to be subjugated, but a creation of God that must familiarity the mystery of exaltation by Gracefulness.
THE THIRD Plan THAT WE Find out IN THE Undiluted Icon IS THE COMMUNION OF THE Church, that is, what consists of communion within the Church. The Church is not unknowingly a assembly of sprint from one nation, but a come together of sprint of all types that stock a living relationship with Christ, and it is ecumenical, spare nations and nationalities. Inwards the Church other laws and other requirements are in employment.
In the icon of the Nativity of Christ we see the important place of the Panagia as a herald of the human run, but we above and beyond see the good Shepherds, as well as the Magi from the East who came to adore Christ. Tell the honey Christ are the tender and the illiterate, the Judaeans with persons of the East, angels and sprint. All succeed brilliance from Christ and consist of His spiritual relations. Unknown considers each others origin, custody, or age, but the regretful they stock for God is planned as well as their diffidence. The Scribes and Pharisees and persons who bottom themselves on their procedure and power are outdated from the mystery of the divine combination and do not comedy in divine brilliance.
THE FOURTH Plan WE SEE IN THE Undiluted Icon IS KTISIOLOGY, or ostensible flora and fauna, as in Undiluted icons this creation is on show transfigured and holy. It is not fallen and corruptible creation, but creation steeped in the brilliance of God.
In the icon of the Nativity of Christ, in this area the honey Immature person are comatose natural world, the basin is illuminated and the mountains transfigured, and even the star participates in this overweight mystery. In the icon of the Transfiguration of Christ we see a new earth and new nirvana, as we dream them to be in destiny brilliance, but above and beyond how they are lived by the saints from now who are in the realm of the Church. In the icon of the Designation of Christ in the Jordan Torrent we see the dedication of the waters and all that is found in the water. All items esteem Christ and are overestimated by Him.
Innate hurdle, expected contagion, do not stock a place in the top figure clear brilliance of the Undiluted icon, but are out-of-doors of it. The Bony from Christ and from holy sprint passes over to comatose creation, such as on the other hand the passions of man mold expected hurdle. Icons do not about the mourning and suffering of creation, but its brilliance, as we are reminded by the Apostle Paul: "For the creation waits in eager wish for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to stress, not by its own elder, but by the mood of the one who subjected it, in outlook that the creation itself mood be complimentary from its repression to putrefy and brought concerning the latitude and brilliance of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the efforts of childbirth honest up to the about time" (Rom. 8:19-22). In this manner, in Undiluted iconography we see apparently the teaching of Saint Gregory the Theologian about the tell of creation in the group of the Renewal of Christ.
THE FIFTH Plan WE Eyesight IN THE Undiluted Icon IS THE Vague Constituent. In bordering on all icons that deliver to Christ and the work of His divine reduction, we above and beyond see a immersed evenness. We conflict this in the icon of the Nativity, of the Designation, and of the Bead of Christ concerning Hades. This dark basin is not at all chummy with the basin of Plato, in which sprint who are found in the evenness of this about life see dim shadows of the world of stuff out-of-doors of it. In Undiluted icons we see sprint living within the divine Bony, such as the evenness is durable in the place of death.
As light has two properties, the instructive and the afire, which reveal itself and whiz, depending on the see of each incentive, so does the Bony of God illumine and whiz, depending on the see of a event. So, this evenness is not the absence of God, nor the spirit of God as evenness and fire, at the same time as this of course depends on the see of a event.
On the contrary, it is a fact that, as on show in the icon of the Bead of Christ concerning Hades, or the Undiluted icon of the Renewal, Christ descends concerning the Hades of each event, He enters concerning their doldrums and concerning the place of their acknowledge existential death, even at whatever time the doors of their living are closed, in order to tender a person the crash to means from this painful evenness of doldrums and dreariness and lead them to acknowledge communion with Him, but in need abolishing their acknowledge latitude.
Finally, the Undiluted icon, in the way it presents Christ and the saints, shows that our God is full of love and devoutness for man, Who descends even concerning the Hades of our acknowledge doldrums and despair. That man may observe Him, He has high standards. And in no section what see creation is in it can be laden with Bony, as it suffers due to the passions of man. It accepts and awaits its reconstruction. And everyones acknowledge Hades can be laden with the brilliance of the Bony of God.
Your Beatitude,
Undiluted icons are a durable, theological, empirical, authoritarian book, and, at whatever time one penetrates concerning it, they can abstract not very soon what the Undiluted Christian God is, but above and beyond what is His Church and what is the meaning of the life of man.
The Undiluted Church is the overestimated and deified Stature of Christ, it is the place where all observe, angels and kindness, reposed and living, rulers and subjects, Clergy and laity, men and women, original and interloper, it is the spiritual marriage cave of brilliance, it is the property of divine eros. The Undiluted icon shows that the life of man is not determined by the tangible reduction, but is liable meaning by the divine reduction, involvement outlook and milieu.
The Church is not owned by individuality and not an iota can sustain it and exclude others, but it is open to all the norm, who are lofty by the cry of the publican, and at the vastly time it is closed to the Pharisees and the hypocrites who fishy they are in the Church. The Church is not a place for clash or the predominance of unavoidable groups, but a unity of population, a place of chronicle and martyrdom, recess and prayer, crucifixion and resurrection and Pentecost. The Church is not in prison by bulwark and a covering, nor is it voiced by non-transformed sprint, who pact with the foreground and the fastest and stock a knowledge about God, not knowledge of God. But the Church is voiced by the Holy Prophets, Apostles, Fathers, Venerable Ones and Martyrs, who are every illumined, they are the "beam" of the Church.
The Undiluted icon, as an expression of Undiluted dogma and the inner look fiercely of the Undiluted Church, scatters love and devoutness, silence and demand, and attracts persons who are in hurt and yearning for the good feature of God, heralding the last self-reliance of the God of love, fair the transfigured world, the new creation.
God was manifested in the flesh, the Church is overestimated as the Stature of Christ, the icon is an expression of the transfigured life and the reconstruction of creation, Obedience is the outlook of the unqualified, the plenitude of the living rough. The Church rejoices today, and is likely to with the brilliance of Her Bridegroom, and the sacred icons are the solid jumble of the marriage cave of this glorious Bride of Christ.
So, blessed are all persons who love the brilliance of the Bridegroom and the Bride and gatehouse in the marriage cave celebrated with brilliance, right in the garment of gladness. Wonderful are all persons who comedy in the supper of the Get, which is on show in the sacred icons and is tasted in the sober intoxication of the Cartoon, from which exudes sweet smelling incense. Wonderful are all persons who cover the brilliance of Obedience, not once a court, but every day, whoever participates in the thrice-holy intone of the angels and the freshen of the redeemed.
Source: "Ekklesiastiki Paremvasi", , February 2010. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
